Harry Potter and the Price of Ability
by Appetite for Illusions
Summary: Harry Potter starts to learn how to control his magic before Hogwarts. How will he cope with learning the "right way"? What changes will his own brand of magic bring to his life? This is not a superpowerful Harry, but that doesn't mean he's weak either. Detailed 7 year re-write, starting from pre-Hogwarts. No 'ship yet, he's only 11!
1. Chapter 1: Hideaway

Harry Potter

And the Price of Ability

**Author's Preface (can be ignored)**

**This is the first chapter of my first piece of fiction. As a warning, I DO NOT DO short stories. I can't remember the last time I read a book under 400 pages long, and my favourites tend to be series of books that create whole worlds anew. For example, the works of Terry Pratchet, Robert Jordan, Robin Hobb, Tolkien, and Rowling spring to mind. For younger readers, I would also recommend the Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddle. In short, this piece is likely to end up covering the 7 years of Hogwarts, and possibly a time afterwards, if there are any characters alive at that point. I will be 'shipping, Harry will be a clueless teenager, and I am writing as I go. This is not going to be an ultra-powerful Harry, though he will be a bit smarter than he is in the books. I guess I'm kind of basing him around myself and my own experiences, as how else do you write about the emotions of a growing boy without reflecting on how you were at the time?**

**This will probably go quite slowly, as it's only a hobby. **

**Please review, be honest, and I will try to answer questions in subsequent notes.**

**Anyway, enough rambling from me, enjoy the story!**

Chapter 1: Hideaway

At 6am, the town of Little Whinging was quiet. The ambient noise from the odd car and the dawn chorus of birds created a peaceful atmosphere, and indeed at first glance the town appeared near idyllic. A suburban area full of semi detached houses, with large, well maintained gardens, fronted with fences or neatly trimmed hedges, presented a view of peace and prosperity that the townsfolk viewed as their rightful status. The majority of the streets were well swept and well lit, but as it was an early July morning, the sun was starting to come up, and the street lights had already turned off.

The residents of Little Whinging would have boasted about their perfect town to anyone visiting, but the town was far from perfect. On a street that looked like any other, stood a house with a beautifully maintained lawn, flowerbeds carefully planted to create a pleasing splash of colour, and a gleaming car stood on the gravel drive. Their neighbours would have said, with a slightly fixed smile, that the residents of Number 4 Privet Drive were perfectly ordinary, good folk that exemplified the type of family living in Little Whinging. However, if pressed further, they might have let their smiles drop a little; there was something a little... odd about the Dursleys.

Mr Dursley was a large man. Most would call him fat; he preferred to describe himself as "well rounded". He had short brown hair that was combed to one side, and if it wasn't for the fact that he had grown his moustache in the walrus style, he could quite easily be compared to a fat Hitler. The director of a drill company, he was the sole earner in the house, and had little patience with anything that got in his way. In contrast, his wife was thin, with long blonde hair that she spent hours grooming to perfection. If they had been less polite, her neighbours would have described her as a "nosy cow"; she was constantly peering out of the windows to spy on them, or strolling around the town trying to work out how to make her house look better than everyone else's. The Dursley's had a single son, who was just as fat as his father. Ten year old Dudley was constantly spoilt by his parents, was used to getting his own way, and would often throw his considerable weight around to ensure that it would remain so. But what all three had in common, aside from their snobbish, self-righteous attitude, was their hatred of the fourth resident of the house.

Harry Potter hated living in his Aunt and Uncle's house just as much as they hated him being there. The Dursleys treated him like a second class citizen, and he sometimes felt that the only distinction between him and a slave or a prisoner was that he had no shackles. Despite living in a 4 bedroom house **(AN)**, Harry's tiny bed was in the cupboard under the stairs, or as the Dursley's called it, his nest. Dudley bullied the smaller boy mercilessly, constantly taunting him about his good for nothing parents, who had died when Harry was one, and picking on him for his small size, glasses, intelligence, and his scar. The scar, Harry thought, was pretty cool. A jagged lightning bolt carved into the skin above his right eye, the legacy of the car crash that had killed his parents. But cool as it might have been, it didn't prevent Dudley from calling him an ugly rat, and no-one at school would ever say that anything about Harry Potter was cool. Dudley made sure of that, as it was well known that Dudley hated Harry and liked to take his anger out on him, often getting his gang to partake in 'Harry Hunting'. This involved catching Harry and beating him up. Fortunately for Harry, they weren't always successful, because although Harry was quite small, this gave him a slight advantage over Dudley: he was a lot faster and more agile, and the years of bullying had taught him good reflexes, so he was usually able to dodge the blows that Dudley tried to inflict. However, he could do nothing about the treatment by his Aunt and Uncle.

Petunia and Vernon Dursley were worse than Dudley. They made Harry cook every meal for them, and let him eat very little of it. Coupled with the physical labour that ensured the car in the drive was kept polished, the lawns kept trimmed, and the house kept tidy, it was no surprise that Harry was underweight and small for his age. They even beat him regularly; Uncle Vernon was a firm believer in discipline through punishment (not that he would ever lay a hand on his Dudders), and had him beaten for not completing the chores fast enough or well enough. This meant that Harry got hit very often, because if he tried to complete the chores faster then he didn't do them well enough. But the worst was when he accidentally let some of his "freak abnormalities" show. Aunt Petunia was terrified someone would find out about them, and so she had Vernon strap him with his belt whenever something unexplainable happened. This would often be followed by a long stay in his cupboard, followed by increased chores as he couldn't complete them whilst locked in the dark with only water and a meagre ration of food.

However, Harry had a secret. The first time he'd made anything weird happen, it had been an accident. When he was 7, his Aunt had decided his messy hair needed a trim, and had shaved nearly all of it off, except a long fringe to hide his scar. Harry had been trapped in his cupboard, forced to listen to Dudley's gloating about how much teasing would happen at school the next day, and Harry had gone to sleep with nightmares about what would happen the next day. Much to everyone's surprise, his hair had grown back completely by the next morning. He'd been sentenced to a week in his cupboard for that, despite having done nothing wrong, and been belted for "freakish behaviour". After that, whenever Harry's emotions had gone to extreme levels of fright or anger, something odd had often happened.

However, what the Dursleys didn't know was that these "freak" incidents happened a lot more often than they thought: they only saw the times when Harry lost control, and the effects were obvious to anyone watching. They didn't notice that the bruises on Harry's upper arms went away faster than normal, because they always hit him where it wouldn't show, and never bothered looking at him. They covered Dudley in insect repellent, and were confused when he still managed to get stung by insects more often than any of his friends. But Vernon blamed that on an increased number of insects due to "the filth in the city", although that didn't stop him from driving his 4x4 to work every day and ignoring the litter of sweets wrappers and fizzy drink cans that Dudley dropped behind him wherever he went outside. They never noticed that there wasn't always an insect nearby when Dudley was stung, or that Harry had hate in his eyes, and a small glimmer of victory appeared in them whenever Dudley jumped up with a yell, clutching at another "bite". And they never knew that at night, in the dark of his cupboard, Harry had begun to try and control his abilities after the third of the obvious incidents (in which Dudley's spaghetti had turned into worms). He knew he was special and caused these things to happen, and he knew there was only one way that could be possible. He was able to do magic.

Knowing he was able to do magic made Harry feel special, even if it was obvious to him that the Dursleys hated it. He'd hidden behind the sofa in the living room whilst Dudley watched cartoons, and knew that abilities and superpowers were a common theme. The X-Men could fly, control weather, make explosions and lights, read people's minds and move things without touching them, and all the kids at school thought they were cool. He could actually do something like this, and was persecuted by the Dursleys just as the X-Men were persecuted for their mutant abilities. Harry realised that the best thing to do was emulate the X-Men: try and keep his magic secret whilst learning to control it. Of course, he couldn't hide it completely; sometimes his anger got the better of him, and they were never going to forget his previous displays of power. But if he could keep his magic as unnoticeable as possible, they would beat him less, and maybe think he'd stopped altogether.

In order to control his magic, Harry decided that the best thing to do would be to practice his abilities so they wouldn't get out of hand unexpectedly. The first ability Harry had attempted was the ability to make light. He had reasoned that if he could grow hair or change spaghetti into worms then this ought to be relatively easy. It had taken a lot of focussing for a feeble spark to appear in the palm of his hand, and the first time he did it he had fallen asleep immediately after. With his malnutrition coupled with the strain of performing magic when it wasn't fuelled by his emotions, he'd been exhausted and it had been nothing short of a miracle he'd woken up in time to cook breakfast the next day. However, the next night it had taken a lot less effort to achieve the spark. Harry found that by imagining a flame and pouring all of his emotions into it, he was able to clear his mind and truly focus on the task at hand. This technique came in handy several times over the next few weeks, helping him restrain himself from exacting revenge on his cousin, and thus helping him avoid a beating or two when he knew that, if he hadn't stopped himself, something very bad and obvious would have happened. Practicing every night, he eventually built up the ability to summon the spark almost instantly. Having mastered this, it didn't take long for him to increase the brightness of the spark until it looked like he had a ball of light approximately the size of a ping-pong ball floating above his hand. This was more than sufficient to light up his small cupboard, and he didn't want to increase it any further lest his Aunt and Uncle notice the glow from under the door. Although the light wasn't much, it gave Harry a small comfort when he was trapped in his cupboard, and he practiced it whenever he had the energy. It wasn't until a year later that he found out he could do more.

An 8 year old Harry Potter stood at the back of the class, watching his teacher silently. The other children in his class had pushed him out of the way, eager to see the science demonstration that the teacher had hoped would encourage them to learn rather than argue all day. There was a single torch on the table, shining into a glass prism, and the kids watched as the white light split into a rainbow of colours. Harry was interested, because up until then, he had thought that coloured light was caused by the object it travelled through, like a stained glass window, or Uncle Vernon's empty beer bottles. The teacher went on to show how light refracted through a glass block, seeming to appear a bit further over than where it should have come out. The other children were disappointed; the boys had hoped to see fire and explosions, but Harry remained thoughtful when he went home.

That night, he tried to change the colour of the light he created. At first, it stayed the same brilliant white, but after some careful thought as to what he wanted, he noticed the light turned slightly yellow. Half an hour later, a buttercup yellow orb hovered just above the palm of his open hand. Buoyed by his success, Harry spent the next 2 weeks creating as many different colours as he could, before moving on to his next goal: creating a fixed light. He already knew that he could move his hand around, keeping the light above it, so he reasoned he should be able to leave the light in one place. After all, it wasn't like the light was attached to his hand. First off, he conjured the light. It was a deep crimson red, his favourite colour. Although he was able to create any colour of light, he had let a particularly bright shade of green go almost instantly; for some reason he felt scared by it. But the red was his favourite, so he decided to use that as it was the one he felt most comfortable with.

Having conjured the light, the first thing he tried was to turn his hand over, in order to double check that it wasn't somehow supported by his hand. The light stayed hovering just under his face down palm, and lit up the floor beneath him, creating creepy shadows of a couple of discarded socks. He turned his palm upwards again, and then moved his hand from left to right, the light staying above his hand. Finally, he held his left palm out, and moved his right hand, along with the light, towards it. When his right hand was on top of his left, he tilted it, and willed the light to transfer to his other hand. Removing his right hand, he was pleased to note that the light now floated above his left hand. This was new for him, as he had always created the light in his right hand. However, he found that he didn't feel a change in focus or energy; he was still just concentrating on maintaining the light. Very slowly, he turned his left hand on its side, and, willing the light to stay where it was, moved his hand away.

Staring at the ball of light suspended in the air in front of him, Harry felt an immense sense of pride. This was a relatively new feeling for him. Previously, whenever he'd done something well, he was only happy because it meant that he wouldn't be punished for it. It didn't matter how amazing a dinner he'd cooked; he could have been a Cordon Bleu chef and he still wouldn't have gotten praise from the Dursleys. He never did well at school; it wasn't that he was stupid; it was that if he did significantly better than Dudley he'd be beaten up. None of the teachers cared about him because he never showed how smart he was, and he never even bothered trying to do anything creative because he'd never be allowed to pursue it as a hobby. He couldn't afford to buy nice pencils, let alone an instrument, and the Dursleys certainly wouldn't buy one for him. Dudley wouldn't let him near the drum kit he had persuaded his parents to buy and then barely touched; when they were 6, Harry had picked up a tambourine to tidy away and Dudley had punched a hole through it because he didn't want Harry to use it. But here in front of him was a magical light, floating in mid air, and he had worked out how to do it and made it himself. No one knew about it, and nobody would ever take it away from him. It was his, his first brand new possession apart from his bargain bin underwear. At that moment, Harry collapsed onto his bed, and 400 miles away, a strange silver instrument in a circular office emitted a small puff of yellow smoke that the sleeping owner missed.

-End of Chapter 1-

**So that concludes chapter one! I hope you've enjoyed it, and keep reading. Please review, comments and critique are always welcome.**

**This chapter has been edited since first publishing. No content has changed, just correcting errors and (hopefully) making things better for you, the reader.**


	2. Chapter 2: Intensity

Harry Potter

And the Price of Ability

**Here's chapter 2. I'm writing about 3 chapters ahead, so that at the moment I can upload and get responses on this and see what people think. If people don't like it, I might go back to the drawing board. I'm trying to add some new points that I haven't seen anywhere else so far, but I doubt one can be truly original having read so many FF's and the original books of course.**

Chapter 2: Intensity

The next day Harry awoke with a throbbing headache, which was only compounded by the pounding on his door. He also felt more exhausted than usual, and wondered why, before he remembered the events of the previous night. His uncharacteristic grin was wiped from his face a fraction of a second after it formed by the screeching of his Aunt Petunia.

"Up! Get up boy! If breakfast isn't started within 10 minutes, you'll get none!"

He heard the lock on the door slide back, and with a sigh, he forced himself out of bed, and began to dress. Reaching down to a small pile on the floor at the foot of his bed, he grabbed a t-shirt and jeans that were both far too big for him and shook them free of dust before pulling them on. Knowing that the threat of no breakfast was very real, and that in his state his ration of two slices of toast and a glass of milk was desperately needed, he hurried to pull on some socks. Opening the door of his cupboard, he walked out and stretched briefly before entering the kitchen, wishing he could have more time in bed to allow his headache to go away. It was going to be a long day.

That evening, he was too tired to do anything except fall asleep the moment he was locked in his cupboard. After washing up the dinner plates (the Dursleys refused to spend money on a dishwasher when they had Harry who did it for free), he'd had the usual 10 minutes to use the bathroom before being confined for the night. By 9 o'clock, he was in bed and dead to the world.

The next day started better than the previous, as this time he was actually up when his Aunt came down in the morning. However, the rest of the day was just as tedious as the previous; another day spent pretending to be an idiot in school, hiding in the library at breaks because it was the one place he knew Dudley would never step foot in. Harry liked to read because nobody could judge him on it. The Dursleys wouldn't care if Harry read all the books in the world, because he still wouldn't do as well as Dudley did in school. Vernon's belt would make sure of that. Furthermore, Harry could lose himself in the world of books. In that world, Harry had been on adventures and fought beasts, solved mysteries, and made friends. It was so much better than real life, and he wondered if any of the more fanciful tales were true. After all, there were plenty of stories about witches and wizards, and although he'd never met any, he was sure he couldn't be the only one in the world.

Upon returning to his cupboard that evening, Harry waited for everyone to go to bed whilst he lay in the darkness, clearing his mind so he could focus on his magic again. After Dudley had jumped up and down on the stairs on his way to bed, shaking lose lots of dust and causing Harry to cough violently, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had also gone to bed, where they could watch TV more comfortably. Once he could hear the low noises from upstairs, he ran through what he had come to think of as his lights and colours exercise, before returning to the task of the night before. Extinguishing the light from the palm of his hand, he lowered his hands and focused instead on forming a light in front of him. He immediately noticed the difference in difficulty; without the focus of his hand, he was only able to generate a small spark in front of him for the first 10 minutes. Finally, pouring in as much energy as he could, he got the light to form properly. To his shock it continued to surge. He shut off his energy and the light blinked out, plunging the room into pitch black darkness whilst the afterimage that the intense light had burned into his retina flashed across his eyes. It appeared to him that although it took a bit more focus to form the light in front of him, once it was formed it required the same amount of power as before, and in his determination he had given it too much power. Suddenly he heard a shout from upstairs.

"DAMN TV!"

Harry froze in the darkness. From the thumping and muted talk coming from upstairs, it appeared that the television in his Aunt and Uncle's room had stopped working. Shortly after, there was a low thud, followed by a shuffling of heavy footsteps and a door creaking open.

"Daaaaddddd, my tele stopped working! Can you fix it?" Dudley's voice whined.

"Ours stopped too. It's 11pm: go to sleep and we'll fix it tomorrow" came the sleepy, irate tone of his Aunt. Dudley's door slammed, and a few creaks were heard as the rest of the house got back into bed. Harry knew he'd have to be careful not to overpower his magic in the future; it seemed like it had affected electronic items because a short moment later, there were some angry rumblings from upstairs in which Harry picked out the words "alarm clock" and "radio".

The next day, breakfast was full of anger. Harry had wisely got up early, and somehow, someone had forgotten to bolt his door the night before. By the time the three Dursleys were downstairs, Harry had cooked a large full English breakfast complete with baked beans, hash browns and fried bread. He was even feeling happy because he'd managed to steal a few spoonfuls of beans and a small, thin rasher of bacon that had been an extra in the pack. This was the first time he'd had anything tasty at breakfast, and by managing to eat it before the Dursleys were up meant they'd never know, so he wouldn't be punished either. For once, they didn't say anything about him being out of his cupboard early, as they were all too annoyed with the electronics and enjoying breakfast too much to care.

It turned out that not only the televisions and radios upstairs were fried, but the television, VCR, hi-fi, and telephones downstairs had all broken too. Vernon had to go to work to call a repairman, and Harry and Dudley left for school. It was an extremely annoyed Vernon Dursley who arrived home that evening to inform the rest of them that there had been an "unexplained power surge", and that they'd have to replace all of the items that were broken. Vernon spent the entire evening ranting to Petunia: they were going to have to replace every electrical gadget that ran off the mains; the electrical couldn't be claimed on insurance, as theirs only covered fire and theft; the manufacturers had told him that their fuse box should have shorted out to protect the items from the surge, and to cap it off, the electrician that Vernon had called out claimed there was nothing wrong with the fuse box and that it was working perfectly. Harry was extremely glad that the oven ran on gas, as if Vernon hadn't received his dinner, Harry was sure that his uncle would have vented some anger on him.

The next day was a Saturday, so the Dursleys went off to the shops to buy new electricals. Dudley had cheered up slightly: he'd been miserable the previous evening due to the lack of TV, but had been promised a bigger one in replacement. Harry was locked in his cupboard when they left. Even if he couldn't break anything (as everything important to them had been broken the night before), they didn't want him to steal their food or sit on a comfy sofa. Harry just accepted this and smiled on the inside: at least this way he'd have more time to practice magic!

Two years later, and a very different Harry Potter was lying curled up on the small bed under the stairs. The clothes on the floor were enormous compared to the ones he'd been wearing two years ago, as Dudley was bearing more and more resemblance to his father every day. Harry, on the other hand, and grown quite noticeably. He'd always been quick, but after he noticed his rapid exhaustion when using magic, he'd started to try and increase his stamina. He'd often go for a jog after school, which suited him just fine as it meant he could stay away from the Dursleys for much longer. As long as he was out of the house, they didn't care where he was, and they often seemed disappointed when he came back. This seemed a bit odd to Harry, as they'd lose all their free labour if he ran away or died, but as long as he got to stay away from them he didn't care what they thought.

Unfortunately, his increase in exercise meant an increase in his appetite. A breakthrough had come when the Dursleys had started to send him out to buy shopping. Whilst he was never sent out on major trips, as he was too young to buy the beer, spirits, and wine that his Aunt and Uncle consumed, he'd often be sent to the small supermarket nearby to fetch milk, bread, eggs, or anything that the household ran out of. During this time, he became well practiced at the art of shoplifting. No-one would suspect the polite 10 year-old in very baggy clothes to be stealing tins of fruit and meat when he always paid for the basic supplies in his basket and never went near the obvious attractions of sweets, crisps, and magazines that the other children always loitered by. The Dursleys never noticed the missing tin opener and, as it was Harry's job to take out the bins, they never noticed the extra tins either. They had conceded that as he grew older he would need to eat more to supplement his growth, but he was still underfed. They never realised he'd been acquiring extra food, and so whilst he was never going to be tall, he was only slightly underweight due to all the exercise that he was doing both physically and magically.

His magic had advanced considerably. Two years ago, he had struggled to make a coloured light appear in front of him. Now, he regularly used illusions to help him out. By creating various lights around him, or altering the path of the light itself, he was able to hide things behind an illusory mask. To everyone else, he appeared an inch shorter than his height of 5'2", and there was a reason he'd never been caught shoplifting. He also used his ability to help himself to slightly larger portions of dinner than he was allowed. Whilst the Dursleys would notice if a sausage went missing, they wouldn't notice an extra inch in a slice of lasagne or a pie, assuming that either Vernon or Dudley had eaten it. He also used it to 'extend' his punishments. The Dursleys would get suspicious if they saw how quickly he healed; a bruise would appear and disappear in a day, and scabs would form and fall off in two or three, as opposed to the two weeks when Dudley moaned about skinning his knee after falling off of his bicycle. The Dursleys saw bruises and scabs on Harry's body where they expected them to be; in reality they were long gone, healed faster by his growing magic.

This particular morning, Harry was curled up on his bed (he didn't have room to stretch out), recovering from the night before. In the last two years, he had spent a lot of time in the library reading any books on wizards and magic that he could find. He'd been a bit disappointed with The Hobbit: despite having a wizard as one of the main characters, Gandalf seemed to do very little. But one of the more interesting things he'd come across was the power of telekinesis: moving an object with your mind. He'd been attempting it for a while now, and found it much harder than the light based magic of illusions. He'd been using a marble he found when cleaning the house as a focus; he doubted Dudley would ever miss it. He'd had no success until the previous night, when the marble had risen about a millimetre up before dropping back onto the small shelf in the cupboard with a tiny 'clink'. If Harry hadn't been concentrating so hard on the marble, he might not have even noticed that it had happened. Feeling tired, he'd curled up and gone to sleep. The next morning, he woke at 6am.

-End of Chapter 2-

**Thank you for reading, please review, and I will try and answer any questions that don't spoil the plot.**

**Author's note**

**Magic and electricity: **In this fic, magic will only interact with electricity if it's on a large scale. It's stated that muggle devices don't work at Hogwarts, yet it's never mentioned with regards to accidental magic at home. On the other hand, wizarding homes don't have electricity, due to their reliance on magic and general lack of technology. Therefore, I decided that things like wards, mass area effect spells, and high energy spells (like a patronus) will affect electrical devices that fall into their range. A simple reparo, on the other hand, will have a limited power output, and so affect a small area. In other words, unless it was cast right next to, or on, the TV, it wouldn't damage it. In this case, Harry's wandless lumos ended up getting out of control, and so the area it affected was much much larger than normal.

**This chapter has been edited since first publishing. No content has changed, just correcting errors and (hopefully) making things better for you, the reader.**


	3. Chapter 3: The House Of Thunder

Harry Potter

And the Price of Ability

**Sorry this update has taken a while; I've been with my girlfriend for the last week and haven't had time to write. At least I've had time to think about where this is going **

**Here's where the story gets going properly. As with The Philosopher's Stone, it starts on Dudley's 11****th**** birthday, but will deviate from canon events slightly. Harry is 10. **

Chapter 3: The House of Thunder

Harry woke up, feeling the usual aftermath of heavily exercising his magic the night before. His head throbbing, he formed a small ball of light near the underside of the stairs that ran over his head. The Dursleys were never up this early, so he could risk it for long enough to get dressed. Reaching down to the floor, he grabbed his glasses and put them on. His blurry vision focussed slightly, and he sighed. He really needed new glasses, as it was getting harder to read at night. He'd tried to bring it up with Aunt Petunia the day before, but she'd been unsympathetic. He gave a shudder, remembering the conversation.

"Aunt Petunia?" Harry had started the conversation after dinner. He'd spent the entire afternoon weeding and mulching her prized flower beds, mowing the lawn, and trimming the hedge. His aunt loved to have her garden looking great (even if she almost never did any work in it) to impress the neighbours, and he'd hoped to get in her good books before this conversation.

"What, boy?" She replied tersely. Harry sighed inwardly. It looked like his 4 hours of garden work hadn't helped.

"I was wondering if you could take me to the opticians" he replied. "My sight's getting blurry and I need new glasses." His aunt drew a breath, and Harry immediately regretted the use of the word "new".

"No I can't!" His aunt exclaimed. "We just spent a lot of money on Dudley's birthday, and we can't spare the money for an appointment! A freak like you doesn't need new glasses now. It's nearly the summer, we'll see about it when you go back to school. Now get on with dinner," she commanded.

Dudley's birthday. Today. The one day of the year the Dursleys treated him even worse than normal before leaving him at Mrs Figg's house, where he was forced to do chores and then look through her endless photo albums of her cats. He wasn't sure which was worse, the photos or the chores. Before all that came his first task of the day: breakfast. He quickly stripped out of his pyjamas, which fell to the floor the second he undid the drawstring. Wondering if he would ever have clothes that weren't 10 sizes too big for him, he pulled on his underwear and some extremely baggy jeans, cinching the belt around his waist tightly. Grabbing a faded t-shirt from the small pile on the floor, he shook the dust off of it and pulled it on. Turning his attention to the door, he picked up a screwdriver from the floor and slid it into the circular keyhole in the door. Turning it, he unlocked the simple bolt and opened the door of his cupboard. He'd found the screwdriver in the streets last year, and had picked it up thinking it might be useful. Not long after, he'd been locked in his cupboard for the night, and had woken up extremely thirsty. Realising he might be able to get out using his new tool, he'd studied the lock before attempting to open it. Since making his first escape, he'd snuck out almost every night in order to pinch a small bit of food or drink from the kitchen.

Careful not to wake the Dursleys, he fetched himself a glass of water and gulped it down, feeling the pressure in his head lessen slightly. Returning to the hall, he stretched for a few minutes before entering his cupboard and retrieving a can of tinned pears that would be his first breakfast. Opening the tin, he sat on the edge of his bed with a fork and ate the pears, thinking about the bad day ahead of him before gulping down the sweet juice and heading back to the kitchen. Quietly, he rinsed the tin and fork in the sink and went to his cupboard. He re-locked the door and hid the empty tin under his bed, placing the fork on a small ledge which he kept dust free. He lay back on his bed, and at 7 o'clock, heard the alarm clock go off upstairs. A short while later, there was a sharp rap at his door.

"Up, now!" his aunt screeched, her voice accompanied by the sound of the lock being undone. "Get cooking. It's Dudley's birthday, you know what he wants."

"I'm up" he replied, getting up off the bed and pushing the door open. He slouched into the kitchen, where his aunt was placing presents on the table. It looked like Dudley had got the new TV he wanted, having put his foot through the previous one when his favourite show, The Great Humberto, was cancelled. He could see a racing bike in the dining room, a ribbon wrapped around the frame. He had no idea why Dudley would want a racing bike, as he knew Dudley hated any exercise other than 'Harry Hunting', but smiled at the thought of Dudley wobbling about on it. Maybe Dudley would crash and get injured, giving Harry some peace for once.

After turning on the oven to preheat, he retrieved eggs, milk, and butter from the fridge. Reaching up into a cupboard for flour and a mixing bowl, he started to make pancake mix. After whisking the batter and placing the bowl to one side, he got some potato waffles out of the freezer and placed them on a baking tray. Putting the tray in the oven, he jumped when he heard a grunt behind him. Uncle Vernon was struggling to carry an enormous box that looked quite heavy. With a final grunt, he put it onto the table, whilst Aunt Petunia began placing more presents around it. Harry suspected the box contained the computer that Dudley had been demanding for the last month. He'd probably be destroying aliens on it later.

Turning back to his task, Harry began frying eggs and bacon in separate frying pans, keeping an eye on them whilst he sliced up some bread to fry later. Turning the bacon over, he grabbed two tins of baked beans from a cupboard, opening them and pouring them into a bowl to heat in the microwave. At eight o'clock, Aunt Petunia went upstairs to wake Dudley up, as Harry finished cooking the last of the pancake mix, adding the results to a veritable mountain of pancakes. He placed two plates on the table, loading them with fried bread, eggs, mushrooms, and bacon, and put the large bowl of beans in the middle. He put a third plate in front of his aunt's place, this one with just one egg, two rashers of bacon, and a large helping of mushrooms. Finally, he got some cornflakes out of a cupboard, and poured himself a small bowl.

Dudley rushed into the room, eyeing the presents and food greedily. Harry could almost see the gears crunching in his mind as he tried to decide whether to eat first or open presents. A loud rumble of his stomach settled it, and Dudley sat down, attacking his breakfast with a savage ferocity that made Harry feel sick to watch. His aunt and uncle were far more restrained, though Uncle Vernon still ate about as much as Harry would get in 3 days. Finishing his breakfast at the work counter, Harry hastened to clear the table once the Dursleys had finished eating, placing the dirty plates on the side before putting a massive stack of pancakes in front of Dudley and Vernon. He gave his aunt a slice of melon, and put a variety of jams, spreads, and syrups in front of the two males. Thankfully, Dudley was a bit slower in eating this time, although he still looked like a pig in a wig, albeit with much worse manners than those found in Animal Farm.

Finally, Dudley got round to his presents after being forced to wash his greasy hands. He'd been staring at them whilst shovelling his food into his mouth, and it looked like whatever thought had been forming in his head for the last 20 minutes was finally ready to work its way out. His beady eyes darting all over the presents, his face betrayed his emotions. His mouth turned down, and he scowled at his parents.

"Thirty-six," he said. "That's two less than last year."

"Darling, did you count this one from Aunt Marge?" Aunt Petunia simpered, pulling out a small present from under an oddly shaped box. "And there's something special for you in the other room as well."

"All right, thirty-eight then," glowered Dudley, still looking annoyed. Harry could tell Dudley was going to throw a tantrum, which certainly wouldn't bode well for the rest of the day. Fortunately, in a rare display of intelligence, Uncle Vernon stepped in to defuse the situation.

"Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father," he chuckled, ruffling his son's hair. "Tell you what, we'll buy you another present while we're out, how's that?"

"Alright," Dudley said. As he began ripping into the massive box on the table, the phone rang. Aunt Petunia paused for a second to see the huge grin on his face as the wrapping fell away to reveal a new computer, before leaving the room to answer the phone. By the time she'd returned, Dudley had unwrapped sixteen new computer games, a video recorder, and the funny shaped present that turned out to be a remote control aeroplane. She looked angry, and Harry thought it was a good thing that Dudley still had a couple of presents still to open.

"Bad news Vernon," his aunt said. "Mrs Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him." She jerked her head towards Harry, who had stopped eating his cereal in surprise. Harry was apprehensive. If they couldn't leave him with Mrs Figg, they certainly wouldn't pay for anyone to look after him, and they'd never leave him alone in the house, even if he was locked in his cupboard. Even the Dursleys had their limits; they wouldn't want to come back to find the house stinking of excrement if he had nowhere to 'go' whilst locked in his cupboard. He'd most likely be locked outside the house, which meant a day looking for shade, hiding places, and a shop to steal food and water from. As their voices rose, his attention was drawn back to the conversation his aunt and uncle were having.

"...Marge?"

"Don't be silly Vernon, she hates the boy. She'd never take him for a day."

"Your friend, what's-her-name, Eve?"

"On holiday. And we can't leave him with someone else, they'll ask too many questions."

"We can't leave him here; I want to come back to a house, not a ruin. We could lock him out and leave him in the garden?"

"What would the neighbours say!? He's eleven; it's fine for him to be doing chores when we're home, but we can't leave him out all day, they'll get suspicious."

Dudley began to cry. Harry knew he was faking it, but for some reason, his aunt had no resistance to his tears. She'd always give Dudley what he wanted when he cried, and Dudley knew it. As Petunia rushed to comfort Dudley, she began trying to soothe him.

"Dinky Diddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day," she cried, sinking to her knees and wrapping her arms around him.

"I...d-don't want him...t-t-to come! He always... sp-spoils... everything!" Bawled Dudley, glaring at Harry over his mother's shoulder.

"Don't worry pookums, he w-" she was interrupted by the doorbell. "Oh god, they're here already!" She fussed, letting go of Dudley and hastening to the door. Dudley immediately stopped crying and wiped his eyes, while Harry began clearing up the dishes. A few seconds later, Piers Polkiss ran into the kitchen.

"Happy birthday Dud!" He yelled, handing him a present. Piers was Dudley's best friend. Compared to the rest of Dudley's friends, Piers was surprisingly smart and scrawny. He had a rat-like face: a sharp jaw and narrow eyes that betrayed his meanness. Piers was the one who came up with most of the ideas in Dudley's gang: who to beat up, who to steal money from, and how to get away with it under the teachers' noses. He'd often be the one acting as a lookout or distracting the teacher whilst Dudley and the rest of his gang got up to no good. Dudley may have been the leader, but Piers was the brains behind it.

Petunia was still talking to Piers' mum, no doubt arranging what time they'd drop him off that evening. Uncle Vernon had left the kitchen to watch TV, leaving Harry alone with the two boys. He wanted to leave too, but there was the washing up to do from breakfast. As he carried the last plate from the table, Piers stuck out a leg, and Harry tripped, the plate falling from his hands. There was a loud crash as the plate hit the floor, the knife and fork that had been on it clattering off to one side. Harry pushed himself up from the floor, ignoring the laughter from Piers and Dudley as he picked up the plate and cutlery. To his horror, a large crack had appeared across the plate.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING BOY!" Yelled his uncle, who had come to see what had happened. Harry had his back to him, so he hadn't seen the crack yet. Panicking, Harry pushed his magic towards the plate, wishing it was fixed. To his surprise, the crack began to recede, and in a matter of seconds, it wasn't visible at all.

"N-nothing Uncle Vernon, I just... I just tripped over and dropped the plate," Harry stammered.

"IT BETTER NOT BE BROKEN!" His uncle screamed. "You know you'll have to do extra chores if it is!"

"It's not, it's fine, look," Harry said hurriedly, holding the plate out for his uncle to see. It looked as good as new, minus the grease from the bacon and eggs, and a small splodge of ketchup at the edge.

"Well count yourself lucky then. NOW GET BACK TO THE DISHES!" His uncle finished, storming off back to the living room and his beloved TV. Dudley and Piers hadn't bothered to contain their laughter, watching Harry get shouted at was even better than seeing on the floor. Wandering out of the room, Dudley ripped open the present Piers had given him. Harry sank his hands into the soapy water in the sink and continued washing the dishes. Snippets of conversation drifted to him as he thought about the new bit of magic he'd done.

"Who are Nirvana?" Asked Dudley. It sounded like the small package Piers had given him was a CD. How had he repaired the plate? He'd never done magic like that before, unless you could count that click of the marble.

"A band my brother likes, thought you might like them." Why had he never been able to repair his glasses like that? They were held together with Sellotape, having been broken by Dudley so many times. There were a few clicks from the other room, and a low, thumping bass line permeated through the house. "I will never bother you," intoned the singer. 'If only,' Harry thought. "I will crawl away for good, I will move away from here, you won't be afraid of fear," came the voice. 'I wish'. "Things have never been so swell, I have never failed to fail," the singer screamed. 'That's me. Failing because I'm told to, so that oaf will look better than me.' The song was almost a perfect description of his life: dark, miserable, and full of pain. He reached absently for the next dish and was surprised he didn't find one. Apparently he'd done the washing up more quickly than he'd thought.

"DUDLEY!" Uncle Vernon roared over the music. "TURN THAT NOISE OFF AND GET YOUR SHOES ON. WE'RE LEAVING SOON!" He stomped into the kitchen, where Harry was drying up the dishes. "Listen boy," he growled in a low voice, grabbing Harry's collar and pulling him towards him as Harry set down the plate he was drying. "I'm warning you now. We have to take you with us. Any funny business, anything at all, and you'll be in that cupboard until Christmas. Got it?"

"Yes Uncle Vernon," Harry stated glumly. It looked like Uncle Vernon hadn't forgotten about his magic over the last two years, despite how well he'd kept it under wraps. Aside from the plate he'd repaired 15 minutes ago, and the unnoticeable illusions he performed on a daily basis, he hadn't done a single bit of magic in front of anyone. He hadn't turned any spaghetti into worms, or somehow teleported onto the school roof (he had absolutely no idea how that was possible, but he supposed that if he could turn spaghetti into worms, then anything was possible. He certainly didn't think a big gust of wind had caught him mid jump or anything stupid like that).

Harry quickly finished the drying and went to his cupboard, pulling on his trashed trainers. They were held together with duct tape he'd found in the garage. He wasn't looking forward to winter, when the holes in the soles would let water and snow through, but as it was June and the weather was heating up, he just pulled them on, and began to look forward to his first ever trip to the zoo.

-End of Chapter 3-

**Author's note**

**Gust of wind: **seriously, how can ANYONE be THAT stupid? A small local hurricane that only affects one boy?

**Comments on reviews**

**GenetiX23 asked for clarification on "NOT Powerful! Harry"- what I meant is that just because he's learning to control his magic at an earlier age, it doesn't mean that he's going to be a super-powerful wizard who can do anything- as will be seen in later chapters, he'll have to overcome a few problems. Of the 'fics I've read, the ones that have Harry learning magic before Hogwarts tend to have him become a demi-god, or at least the most powerful wizard in the world. I've changed the summary to reflect this, and I hope that clears up any confusion.**

**As for the comments on the number of bedrooms- I didn't realise it was in the book, it's been a while since I read them. At least I got it right ****. For some reason I've always imagined it as a large 3-bedroom house. Then when I started writing this, I actually thought about it and realised that was stupid. Please don't go berserk if I miss a detail from the book in future: no-one's perfect! **

**This chapter has been edited since first publishing. No content has changed, just correcting errors and (hopefully) making things better for you, the reader.**


	4. Chapter 4: Shattered

Harry Potter

And the Price of Ability

**So I realised almost as soon as I published the last chapter that the song I referenced, You Know You're Right, by Nirvana, wasn't released until 2002. Oh well. It was recorded in 1994, and would have been on Nirvana's forth album if Kurt hadn't killed himself/ had survived [insert conspiracy theory here], so it's not entirely anachronous. Either way, as the technology in the books is limited to basic descriptions, i.e. "car", "underground", "computer", etc, there's nothing to go by save the gravestone/ memorial in book 7 (and probably a few other references I missed), which will be altered to give a later date. I'm going by the publishing date of '97 to match with Harry's 11****th**** birthday, as that's about as far back as I can remember, and also the year I first read Harry Potter. Sue me. I also apologise for the slow progress- I'm trying to find a job, spend time with my girl before she goes to uni this weekend, rebuild a bathroom (it's currently missing two walls), and figure out what I want to do with my life. **

**Disclaimer: in case anyone hasn't realised yet, there's no book called Harry Potter and the Price of Ability. And I'm a man. So I'm obviously not Ms Rowling, and only own (most of) the words I've typed. I'm probably one of the infinite monkeys who wrote something other than Shakespeare.**

Chapter 4: Shattered

Harry was sat in the back of Uncle Vernon's brand new company car, hoping they'd reach the zoo soon. It wasn't that the car was uncomfortable, or that he wasn't enjoying the scenery as they drove out of the city: it was that he was stuck between Piers and Dudley, and they were intent on making his life hell. As soon as they'd got to the car, he'd been forced into the middle seat. Piers may have been scrawny but he was still bigger than Harry, even if Harry dropped his near permanent illusions. Before they left, Vernon had told Harry he wasn't to touch anything in the car lest he break it, and so Harry was squashed into the small middle seat, as far away from the electronic windows, speakers, and any escape route from the car. It was also the least defensive position in the car: with his uncle glaring at him in the rear view mirror every five minutes, he couldn't do anything to prevent Piers and Dudley constantly giving him sharp pokes or pinches for the entirety of the journey.

Harry was extremely relieved when his uncle swerved into a parking space in the large car park near the entrance to the zoo. Finally able to escape the torment of his cousin in the confines of the car, Harry got out and stretched, taking in the world around him. He'd never been out of the city before: the Dursleys had refused to pay for school trips to museums and local botanical gardens, saying that they couldn't afford the small fee for coach and entrance. They consigned him to sitting at the back of a year below class room, reading or doing homework whilst the rest of his year went to look at dinosaur skeletons or rare and exotic plants. The car park was like any other: a huge, gravelly, low maintenance expanse filled with the cars of visitors to the zoo. At one end, there was the large entrance they'd driven in through, and at the other was a wide section of ticket booths and turnstiles. Piers and Dudley had already run off in that direction, so Vernon quickly locked the car and set off after them with Petunia, Harry falling in behind them, out of sight. He could hear his aunt and uncle grumbling about the extra cost of admission for Harry, and didn't want to antagonize them by appearing happy in front of them.

They joined a short queue, and were eventually let in. It was around mid-day, and Dudley was already looking hungry, so they all headed to a nearby ice-cream shop. Vernon bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice-creams, and because the smiling lady had already asked Harry what he'd like, they got him a cheap lemon ice lolly as well. It was the first time he'd had ice-cream, and he thought it was delicious as he licked it whilst watching a large gorilla scratching itself and looking remarkably like a very hairy Dudley. As the Dursleys walked round, Harry made sure to stay a little way away from them, in case Dudley and Piers got bored and decided to attack him again. He knew they wouldn't be able to do much in the crowded zoo, as other parents were sure to comment if they attacked him violently, but they could still trip him or give him sharp knocks, and he wanted to avoid that. That aside, Harry had the best morning in his life. He got to see all sorts of animals that he'd only heard about or seen pictures of: lions, giraffes, elephants and tigers. However, his favourite were the cheetahs. They looked just as proud as the other big cats, but less lazy, and seemed to have a somewhat intelligent look; where the lions just looked bored and aloof, the cheetahs looked watchful and alert. He also liked their faces, with the dark markings around their eyes reminding him of his glasses a little.

At one o'clock, they went to have lunch at one of the restaurants in the zoo. This was the first time Harry had had lunch at a restaurant, and although he had the cheapest item on the menu, a burger and chips, he thoroughly enjoyed it. He even got to add some tomato ketchup, as the condiments were free, and so got to taste the source that Dudley poured onto almost every meal for the first time in his life. After the main course, Dudley and Piers got knickerbocker glories. Harry had said that he was full when the waiter asked him what he'd like, noting his uncle's fierce glare from behind the waiter. When the puddings arrived, Dudley threw a small tantrum because his wasn't big enough, so Uncle Vernon ordered another one and Harry had to sit through the sickening sight of Dudley stuffing his face with two puddings.

Finally, they were all finished, and headed off to the 'Danger Zone'. The Danger Zone was a large building that hosted all the most deadly animals in the zoo: all kinds of poisonous reptiles, spiders, and insects. Dudley was excited, wanting to see enormous man crushing pythons and all the highly venomous snakes, and ran inside with Piers, quickly finding the largest snake in the building. It was an enormous boa constrictor and, disappointingly, it was fast asleep.

"Make it move!" Dudley demanded, as his parents caught up to the two boys. Uncle Vernon rapped sharply on the glass, ignoring the large sign that told him not to. The snake didn't move.

"Do it again," Dudley ordered. The snake, which in Harry's opinion could have easily wrapped itself around his uncle's car and crushed it, lazily opened one eye as Uncle Vernon rapped the glass hard. It seemed to Harry as though the snake was judging them. Strangely, its gaze lingered on him for a second longer than the others, but it soon closed the eye again and did nothing more.

"This is boring," Dudley declared, and waddled off in search of other animals to torment, Piers tagging along with him. As his Aunt and Uncle walked away to find a bench to sit on, Harry moved to the centre of the window to give the giant snake one last look. He doubted he'd ever see a reptile this big again. To his surprise, the snake cautiously opened its eye once more, and looked around. Seeing nobody around save Harry, it raised its head until it was looking him in the eye. And bowed.

Harry nearly fell over in shock. The snake had bowed to him! There was no mistaking it- the snake had raised its head about three feet from floor of its enclosure and had made a very deliberate movement, lowering its head and about a foot of its body until it was horizontal before raising it to look Harry in the eye once more. Nervously looking around him, Harry bowed back.

"Err...hello?" He asked, feeling foolish talking to a snake. Then again, the snake had just bowed to him, so maybe it wasn't that stupid after all. The snake hissed at him, but he could tell it wasn't in an angry way. In fact, it seemed like it was trying to tell him something.

"Sorry about them... I get the same treatment. It's annoying, getting that all the time..." the snake nodded in agreement and hissed softly. "What do you do all day in there?" Harry voiced out loud. The snake gestured around with its tail, passing over a log, and a variety of shaded and sunny patches. Harry got the impression that its answer was "not really much to do", but was interrupted from further thought by a shout.

"DUDLEY! COME LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"

Dudley came waddling out from behind a large tank of scorpions, moving as fast as he could whilst Uncle Vernon had got up from his bench to see what all the fuss was about. As he neared the enclosure, he passed another family who looked distinctly displeased at the behaviour of Piers and Dudley, protectively pulling their bushy haired daughter towards them. Dudley beat his father to the boa's enclosure, shoving a startled Harry out of the way. Harry fell to the floor, and jarred his elbow. He couldn't resist sending a magical sting to Dudley's rump as it rushed past him.

To Harry, everything seemed to be in slow motion. As he felt the small surge of magic leave him to administer the sting, Harry could have sworn he saw a glimmer of yellow in the air. Heading in two different directions. The first hit his intended target of Dudley's massive behind, causing him to yelp in pain, and fall forwards. Unfortunately, his raised hands came into contact with the glass front of the enclosure at exactly the same time as the second glimmer of yellow hit it.

The glass shattered.

Dudley kept falling forwards, glass raining down on him. The snake, which had still been 'standing' to look at this new adversary, moved remarkably quickly for its size. As soon as Dudley had started to fall, it had uncoiled itself and slithered to one side. As Dudley landed heavily on the ledge of the enclosure, the snake was well clear of him, avoiding the irony of a man crushing snake being crushed by a man. As the last of the glass landed on and around Dudley, the screaming began, snapping Harry back to real time. Dudley was screaming in pain from the cuts on his hands, whilst Piers and several onlookers screamed and shouted in reflexive panic and shock. Uncle Vernon was trying to lift Dudley back to his feet, hampered by the glass around him, whilst the snake was using the opportunity to try and slither away unnoticed. By the time Aunt Petunia rounded the corner to see what all the noise was about (she could never resist the chance to gawk at someone else's misfortune), Dudley was standing again, cradling his bloody hands. When he saw his mother, he ran towards her holding out his hands, and she started screaming louder than everyone save her crying son.

Several minutes later, a hoard of zoo officials arrived: a medic and the head of the Danger Zone to look after Dudley, several workers to contain the forming crowd and clear up, and a small team of handlers. Far more observant than the public, the handlers been informed of the escape via CCTV, and an alarm that informed them of any break in the enclosures. As everyone fussed around the Dursleys, or looked for the escaped snake, Harry was largely ignored. This suited him fine, as it meant that he could avoid awkward questions.

Over an hour later, Dudley's hands had been bandaged, the snake had been found in some shrubbery, and the manager had apologised profusely for what he was calling a "terrible accident".

"I don't understand how the glass could have broken like that!" He'd said, over and over again. "It's a miracle that no-one was seriously injured, and that the snake was caught so quickly."

"Well you can be sure we'll be suing the zoo for endangering our son like that!" Vernon had stated angrily. "He could have been crushed to death by that monster!"

"Well sir, the snake had been fed last evening, and that's why it spent most of today resting," the manager had explained. "We will be investigating how the glass broke so easily, but there are signs everywhere telling you not to bang on the glass. Your son is very lucky he didn't break into another enclosure; we were told he was near the scorpions before running over to the boa constrictor, imagine if he'd fallen into them! He'd have been stung repeatedly, and would have been lucky to survive."

"Well yes..." flustered Vernon, suddenly realising how close to death his son had actually come "...but the glass should have been tougher, a snake like that could probably break its way out!"

"As I said, we don't know why it happened, but we will be investigating it thoroughly, and checking all the other glass enclosures for cracks or signs of fatigue. In the meantime, I hope you'll accept our most humble apologies, along with a 5 year family pass to all the attractions run by our owner? It includes a major theme park, as well as this zoo, and several activity parks." Uncle Vernon had accepted the gift, but he knew that it was an attempt to prevent them suing. Listening in on the conversation, Harry could almost see the dollar signs rolling into his uncle's eyes like in one of Dudley's cartoons.

The long drive back was very quiet. Dudley was whimpering softly, clutching his bandaged hands, whilst Harry's aunt and uncle talked quietly in the front seats. Piers had calmed down, and was trying to tell Dudley about how the snake had snapped at him and nearly bitten off his leg as it fled, but for once, Dudley was ignoring everything around him. Amazingly, that included Harry, and so Harry had a much more relaxing ride home, free of pinches and prods. That was until Piers, tired of Dudley's unresponsiveness, turned on Harry.

"You were talking to it, weren't you?" He stated loudly.

"Talking to what?" Harry replied.

"The snake. Before I shouted, you were talking to it, and it was making all kinds of strange movements." Uncle Vernon's eyes shot up into the rear-view mirror.

"Don't be stupid. Snakes don't understand people. You're just jealous it didn't move for you. If people could talk to snake, it'd be all over the papers or something. I'm not some old Indian man playing a flute for a snake in a basket." Piers harrumphed in response, and glared out of the window. Uncle Vernon's eyes kept flicking up to the mirror to look at Harry, who put on a bored expression as though he had nothing to hide. Eventually, Harry's uncle stopped and went back to focussing on driving, leaving Harry free to think about the day's events.

He'd apparently done two new bits of magic today. He'd managed to repair a broken plate, and he was sure that his little magic sting had somehow weakened the glass. But it was odd, because he was sure he'd only fired off one sting. He was glad that between the breaking glass, the escaped serpent, and the cuts on his hands, Dudley had completely forgotten why he fell in the first place. Harry had never considered using the sting on anything other than people, and wondered how other objects would react. He didn't know if he could control the power either, though he thought that it ought to be relatively easy. He'd been pretty angry earlier, after being shoved to the floor, and so the sting had been a little stronger than he'd used in the past.

The fact that he'd managed to repair the plate was the more important of the two discoveries. He had so many broken objects; he'd be a lot more comfortable in his closet if he could fix them. But if the Dursleys ever noticed, he'd be in trouble for sure. Although his uncle seemed suspicious at the moment, he thought he'd managed to deflect most of it away. After all, his uncle couldn't prove anything; it wasn't like he'd made the glass disappear. But if they ever found items that they'd thrown away now fixed, they'd realise he was still using magic. Still, he had a couple of things they wouldn't notice that he could practice on first.

They dropped Piers off at his house on the way back, and finally they were home. Dudley immediately shuffled off into the lounge, whilst Harry went through to the back garden to get out of the way. On his way, he heard a howl from Dudley.

"MUM! I can't work the remote because of my hands!" Dudley shouted. His mother rushed in to help him, whilst Harry ran for the back door. He didn't want to be forced to wait on Dudley and look after him. In the kitchen, he paused briefly to put the kettle on, knowing that it would help keep his aunt and uncle calm, but was stopped on his way to the back door by a firm hand on his shoulder. He turned round to find his uncle glaring at him.

"What happened today, boy?" His uncle hissed. Crap. It looked like his uncle wasn't as devoid of suspicion as he'd thought.

"Nothing, Uncle Vernon," Harry lied. "Dudley pushed me out of the way and fell into the glass. I couldn't stop him because I was on the floor."

"Don't play smart with me boy. You know what happens if you do anything freaky."

"I didn't! Dudley broke the glass!"

"Well consider this your last warning. Anything suspicious, one toe out of line, and that's it. Got it?" Harry nodded glumly. "Good. Now get started on dinner." Uncle Vernon released Harry and went to the fridge, retrieving a can of Stella Artois from the fridge and heading into the lounge to join Dudley on the couch and wrest the remote from him. Harry dug out some frozen chicken kievs from the freezer and turned the oven on to heat up. He poured himself a glass of water, refilled the filter, and made the cup of tea for his aunt. He took it to her in the living room, and then went to back to the kitchen to continue with dinner.

Dinner was more bearable than normal, as Dudley couldn't use his cutlery. This meant that instead of the usual disgusting lack of manners, he was forced to eat more slowly as his aunt fed him bit by bit. By the end of the evening, Dudley was complaining that it was the worst birthday ever. He hadn't even been able to use his new computer or play with any of his other presents due to his heavily bandaged hands, and instead sat dejectedly in front of the television. Even Die Hard with a Vengeance didn't cheer him up, a first given Dudley's love of action films. After doing the washing up and getting ready for bed, Harry was glad to escape to his cupboard and begin to investigate his new fixing abilities.

-End of Chapter 4-

**Author's Note**

**Various reviewers have questioned where this story is going. Particularly "how strong will Harry be", "what changes are you making", and "relationships with Dursleys/ Dumbledore". I can't really comment on his strength, because it's integral to my plot. I'm not making Harry weaker OR stronger than in the books, just different. This will be evident over the next few chapters, and will be one of the main focal points of the story.**

**The changes will become clearer as the story goes on, it should be obvious that it's not going to be short, so I can't give everything away at once.**

**Relationships is a difficult one. Readers have to keep in mind that by and large, Harry hasn't been treated much worse than he was in the books. We're told that he was slightly malnourished, that whilst they fed him, he" was never allowed to eat as much as he wanted to and that Dudley always took anything Harry really liked". Likewise, it's frequently implied that Dudley physically assaults him- how else do his glasses keep on getting broken? The only thing I've added is being hit by Vernon for using magic. As this has been a minor thing- the Dursleys don't know about his experiments/ training, and he's kept his magic hidden from them for the last 3 years- after all, illusions are meant to be something that other people don't notice, aren't they? Consequentially, Harry is fighting back against the Dursleys, something he doesn't do in the books. In the books, he never forgives them; he just says he doesn't want them to be killed by Voldemort. Seems fairly reasonable, with his "saving people" thing. I'm not saying that he's going to turn around and give them a hug, just that his main priority once he leaves them is to stay gone. Harry's not a bitter guy, he's not going to spend 7 years plotting revenge on them, and he already gets some on Dudley, who I see as his main antagonist. As for Dumbledore, you'll have to wait and see- Harry currently has no idea who he is!**

**I'm glad people are enjoying this, next time I'll try and keep the notes a lot shorter! Thanks for reading, please leave a review, and in return I'll try and work on the next chapter a little faster! **

**This chapter has been edited since first publishing. No content has changed, just correcting errors and (hopefully) making things better for you, the reader.**


	5. Chapter 5: Watchers

Harry Potter

And the Price of Ability

**Thanks for the great response to Chapter 4, lots of reviews, views, and follows makes me happy! On with the show!**

**Please remember, I am not sticking to the given timeline. The current year, in which Harry first attends Hogwarts, is 1997. This matches the publishing date of TPS, and is also about as far back as my memory stretches (I was 7 at the time), and so is the earliest I feel comfortable writing about. Please take anachronisms with a pinch of salt. Wow, that's the shortest intro I've written.**

**Disclaimer: It's almost like this has been written before... Hmm, better read this copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to make sure someone's not stealing ideas from me...**

Chapter 5: Watchers

It was two weeks after Dudley's disastrous birthday, and Harry was once again locked in the cupboard. He'd already snuck out for his morning routine of a glass of water, a tin of fruit and a few stretches in the corridor before locking himself away again and awaiting his aunt and uncle. The two weeks had been largely uneventful, with Dudley waiting for his hands to heal. The bandages had come off on at the start of the previous week, revealing Dudley's pale, pudgy hands patterned with a few small scabs that didn't look as if they were going to scar. Harry was glad it hadn't been more serious: he couldn't have stood waiting on Dudley any longer, and he was sure he'd have been punished more if it was worse. As it was, the Dursleys seemed to have decided it was a freak accident. Vernon had a lawyer talking to the zoo, and they already seemed to be spending the insurance payout in their heads. Dudley had had a second birthday party at the weekend, this time devoid of boa constrictors. Piers and another of his friends, Connor Green, had come around to play video games. They'd had a large cake (courtesy of Harry's cooking), and had gone to the cinema in the afternoon. Harry had managed to spend most of the day out of their way, and so had escaped feeling Dudley's healed fists.

As he waited for the Dursleys to come and free him, Harry looked around at his possessions. A lot of them were in better condition than they were two weeks ago. During the nights spent in his cupboard, he'd tried to explore his newfound "fixing" power. At the moment, he was only able to use it to fix cracked or snapped items. He'd managed to fix the glass face on his small alarm clock, and most importantly, he'd managed to repair the frame on his glasses. He still had to keep sellotape wrapped around the bridge, in order to prevent suspicion from the Dursleys, but they were a lot more comfortable now, and weren't as lopsided as they had been before. They still weren't good enough though, as his eyesight was still bad. He'd stopped wearing them inside his cupboard, mostly closing his eyes and trying to meditate on his magic. He was continuing his experiments into telekinesis, and was now holding the marble in his hand when he tried to lift it. This way, he could close his eyes and focus on it better, and he was now able to hold it an inch aloft for around thirty seconds before his concentration dimmed and it dropped.

He was beginning to define his magic into separate categories. First of all, there was his "light magic". This was his most used branch of magic, as he used illusions on a daily basis. They were almost subconscious by now; he'd been doing them every day for nearly a year and a half. It was his routine to apply them as he heard his aunt or uncle come down the stairs in the morning, and to check them in the mirror each time he went to the bathroom. He also used them to gain his extra food, and he was extremely grateful for this ability. Whilst he would never be large or bulky, he'd certainly filled out a lot more than he would have on the small amounts the Dursleys thought he was eating.

Secondly, there was his "attack magic". At the moment, this was very limited to the magical sting he'd discovered, but he'd been paying more attention to that over the last two weeks. Since the incident in the zoo, he'd realised that he could vary the power quite a lot. He'd found a plank of wood around the back of some shops on one of his runs, and had set it up as a target in the corner of his cupboard. Although this only gave him a few feet of range, he'd tested his power on it as much as he dared. He'd found that his most basic sting, the one which he often used as revenge on Dudley, produced a very small mark on the wood, almost like a burn, about two millimetres in diameter. Powering up, he could create a small crater in the thick piece of wood, almost a centimetre across, but just as deep. He thought this was the same as the sting that had broken the glass in the zoo.

On top of these two were another three categories: healing, fixing, and telekinesis. He didn't understand healing at all: it appeared involuntary, an automatic response from his body. He wouldn't have realised it existed if it wasn't for the fact that he seemed to heal a lot faster than anyone else he knew. Scratches and cuts like those Dudley had received from the broken glass would have completely healed in about five days for him, rather than the two weeks it took for the first scabs to start dropping off of Dudley's hands. His fixing abilities seemed to be a more controlled aspect of the healing, but applied to other objects. He thought he should be able to fix more complicated items, but suspected a lack of understanding prevented that. And finally, the telekinesis was at the moment impractical, but sure to become useful with more training.

The clicking of the lock startled Harry out of his small reverie, and he pushed open the door, blinking in the sudden light. He went to make breakfast, frying bacon and eggs, and heating some beans for Dudley and Uncle Vernon, who had come downstairs shortly after he began cooking. After piling it onto their plates and providing a slice of grapefruit and a bowl of muesli for Aunt Petunia, he was finally starting to eat his own bowl of cereal when the sound of letters being shoved through the letterbox came from the front door.

"Get the post Dudley," Uncle Vernon grunted from behind his paper.

"Make Harry get it," Dudley replied petulantly.

"Boy, post, now. Don't keep us waiting." responded Vernon, as he went back to his newspaper. Harry sulkily got up, abandoning his cereal (which he was sure Dudley would steal), and headed to the front door. As he left, his aunt started up a conversation as to what secondary school Dudley would get into. Hoping for a windfall from the zoo lawsuit, they'd applied to get him into Smeltings, a nearby private school which Vernon had also gone to as a child.

There was quite a bit of post this morning. A postcard, several envelopes which looked like bank statements and bills that were addressed to Uncle Vernon, the usual junk mail, and... what was this? A letter for Harry?

Harry was perplexed. No-one ever wrote to him. The school sent any correspondence home with the pupils. He had no friends that would write to him, and his only living relatives were the Dursleys, who wouldn't have bothered to teach him how to read if it hadn't been taught at school. He wasn't even a member of a library, and so never got any notices, and was too young for any post from banks or the government. Yet there it was. A letter, very clearly addressed to him.

Mr H. Potter

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

The envelope was thick and heavy, made from a yellowish sort of paper that Harry had never seen before. He thought it might be parchment, as he'd heard it described in a couple of the fantasy books he'd read. But who would use parchment? The address was written in green ink, with an odd hand. It was joined up, but it didn't look like it flowed: almost as if it had been written by a machine taught to mimic human writing. Turning it over, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing an odd coat of arms.

"Hurry up, boy!" Uncle Vernon shouted from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs? Don't bother, with any luck it'll get you!" He chuckled at his own joke.

Harry returned to the kitchen, still puzzling over the unopened letter clutched in his hand. He chucked most of the junk mail in the bin on his way past, keeping the takeaway menus for Dudley. Handing the bank statements, bills, and postcard to his uncle, he sat down at his seat, still staring at the envelope in his hand. Meanwhile, Uncle Vernon had ripped open the bank statements and bills snorting in disgust and tossing them to one side. Flipping over the postcard, he scanned it quickly.

"Marge is ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk-"

"Dad!" Dudley said suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something." Harry had finally opened the envelope and was about to take out the letter contained inside when it was snatched from his hand by his uncle.

"That's _mine_!" said Harry, forgetting who he was dealing with and trying to snatch it back. His uncle casually shoved him away, almost unbalancing him from his chair.

"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, taking the letter from the envelope and shaking it open and scanning it. As his eyes moved down the paper, his face changed colour rapidly, reddening in anger, before paling to an odd shade of grey.

"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped, aghast, handing the letter to her. Dudley tried to snatch it from her, but she turned her back on him and read it. From where Harry was sat, it looked like she was going to faint, as her face paled to match her husband's. She made an odd sort of choking noise, and sat down very heavily on the chair behind her.

"Vernon! Oh my goodness- Vernon! What do we do?" They stared at each other, panic and horror written all over their faces. Dudley didn't like this lack of attention, and poked his father.

"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.

"_I _want to read it, as it's _mine_!" Harry said furiously.

"No. Get out, both of you." Vernon croaked, still looking pale.

"I WANT MY LETTER!" yelled Harry, unmoving and forgetting everything from the past 10 years of his life.

"I want to see it!" demanded Dudley.

"OUT! NOW!" Vernon roared, grabbing Harry and Dudley by the collar and forcing them out of the door. Petunia followed him, and they retreated to their bedroom. Dudley followed, and Harry snuck along behind him, rounding the top of the stairs just in time to see his aunt and uncle's bedroom door being slammed shut.Harry and Dudley promptly had a short, silent fight over who got the keyhole. Dudley swung a vicious punch at Harry's face, which he dodged, but left him vulnerable to a jab in the stomach from his larger cousin. Triumphant, Dudley turned and knelt at the keyhole, slapping at his neck where he suddenly felt a sharp sting. Saying nothing, Harry dropped to the floor, taking off his glasses so he could comfortably listen at the crack under the door. Dudley didn't make it pleasant; he carefully moved his foot so that it crushed Harry's outstretched hand, and his glasses beneath it. Harry heard a slight crack: it looked like he was going to have to magically repair his glasses tonight. At least it wasn't a bone in his hand.

Ignoring Dudley's treatment, Harry focused on the conversation in the other room.

"Look at the address- how could they possibly know where he sleeps? Do you think they're watching the house?" came his aunt's quavering voice.

"Watching- spying- might be following us. Taking notes on how we treat the boy, what'll they do?" Vernon muttered wildly. Harry could see shadows moving around under the door, it looked like his uncle was pacing about as he spoke. "They can't do anything! We'll just say we can't afford to keep him- they've no idea about the real world, they're all mad. They won't know."

"But Vernon, what should we do? Write back, tell them he can't go? If he does, at least he'll be gone. We won't have to look after him anymore, he can stay with them." There was a long pause.

"...no." his uncle finally answered. "No, we'll ignore it. They might think we've moved, they won't keep looking. He's just another unimportant boy, if their system's anything like ours he'll just be forgotten about..."

"But-"

"NO! I'm not having one in the house. Didn't we swear when we took him in that we'd stamp out that rubbish, we've made him work so much he shouldn't have any energy left for that. We'll discuss this further later; I'll be late for work if I don't go now." Harry and Dudley sprung away from the door, Dudley disappearing into his bedroom and Harry going into the bathroom. Five seconds later when Uncle Vernon emerged from his bedroom, Harry was cleaning his teeth with the bathroom door open. His eyes met his uncle's, and they stared at each other before Uncle Vernon headed downstairs. Harry heard the front door slam, and began to get ready for school.

That evening, after Harry had cooked dinner and cleaned up, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before. He entered Harry's cupboard. Harry was glad that he'd taken out his empty tins of food when he'd put the bins out that evening, and that his few incriminating possessions- his fork, target board, screwdriver- were hidden out of the way.

"Where's my letter? Who's writing to me?" he asked the moment his uncle's bulk appeared in the doorway. He didn't care about being punished any more, he wanted the only bit of contact he had with the world. He didn't know who had written to him, but it had to be someone better than the Dursleys. He didn't care what they wanted, he knew it wasn't anything bad because he'd never done anything to anyone except the Dursleys, and he knew that banks and other companies didn't write on paper like that. It had to be someone interested in him, and at least a neutral party: enemies didn't send you letters. At least not to ten year olds.

"No-one. It was addressed to you by mistake," Uncle Vernon said tersely. "I have disposed of it."

"It was _not_ a mistake; it was addressed to me, in this cupboard!" Harry said angrily. "No-one else lives in here, no-one else knows I live in here- it couldn't have been a mistake!"

"SILENCE!" his uncle shouted, causing some dust to fall from the ceiling. "Don't make me reconsider this offer!"

"What offer?" Harry asked suspiciously. It was highly unlike his uncle to make any offer to Harry, let alone one that he would apparently regret being denied.

"This cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking... you're getting a bit big for it... we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom."

"Yeah right." Harry muttered under his breath. "Why?"

"Don't take that insolent tone with me boy!" Uncle Vernon growled. "If you're not in that bedroom with all your stuff in ten minutes, the deal's off." And with that statement, he left Harry's cupboard.

Harry stared at the retreating form of his uncle until it disappeared from sight, and then sat in shock for another few seconds. The house had four bedrooms: one for his aunt and uncle, one for guests, and two for Dudley. Strictly speaking, only one of Dudley's rooms was used as a bedroom. The second was a combination of toy room and junk room. It was where Dudley stored all of the toys he had broken or didn't use any more. Why they weren't thrown out was a mystery to Harry. Privately, he thought it was an excuse to keep him out of the room: if it was full, he couldn't use it. He could hear Dudley throwing a huge tantrum in the living room, and the sounds of his mother trying to placate him. If Harry knew the Dursleys well, then tomorrow there would be a present for Dudley. Probably something expensive, given the size of the tantrum he was throwing. Dudley's crying brought him back to reality with a jolt, he realised Uncle Vernon had left his cupboard almost two minutes ago, and he probably would renege on his offer if Harry violated the ten minute time limit.

Harry looked around the cupboard at his meagre possessions. He picked up the small pile of clothes and dumped them on his bed. On top of that went the repaired alarm clock, a few marbles he'd found and played with as a child, the small jam jar that held around two pounds worth of one, two, and five pence pieces that he'd found wandering the streets. His prize possession, a one pound coin, was retrieved from its hiding place behind the post of the small bed. His screwdriver, fork, and target board were hidden amongst the clothes. Picking up the small bundle, he carried it upstairs into his new room, and put it on the one clear corner of the bare bed. Quickly stashing the money behind some very dusty books, he ran back downstairs to grab the pillow and thin duvet from his bed. With a last look around his cupboard, he had a small smile of victory on his face as he left it for the last time. He was going up in the world- literally. For the first time in his life, he had a bedroom on the second floor.

The next day, Harry woke in a strange bed in the unfamiliar room. It took him a while to remember that he had moved into a new bedroom. He still couldn't believe it, and expected to be kicked out any time soon. Breakfast that morning was unusually quiet. Dudley was still upset over the loss of his second bedroom, and his aunt and uncle looked like they hadn't slept a wink. They were also being uncharacteristically nice to him. Aunt Petunia had looked over his shoulder whilst he was cooking breakfast and told him to add two rashers of bacon and an egg for himself. This was the first time they'd ever allowed him to do that. The post box clattered as he was eating the first rasher of bacon that he hadn't stolen when the Dursleys weren't looking.

"Get the post Dudley," said Uncle Vernon, not looking up from behind his paper.

"May' the fre' ge' 't," said Dudley, his mouth full of food.

"_I said _get the post Dudley," Uncle Vernon replied. Harry and Dudley stared at him, before Dudley begrudgingly rose and went into the hall. A few seconds later, there was a shout.

"There's another one! Mr H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Priv-" He was cut off by an angry shout from Vernon, who rushed into the hall faster than Harry had ever seen him move. It was a dejected Harry who left for school that morning. He still didn't have his letter, and to make matters worse, Uncle Vernon now clearly knew that whoever was sending it wouldn't stop.

When he got home from school that day, Harry began the long process of sorting out the junk in Dudley's room. He kept several things- the discarded Nirvana CD that Piers had given to Dudley for his birthday, a small wooden box with a cracked lid (which was easily mended with his magic), and the numerous dusty books. Along with an old lamp, for which he found a light bulb downstairs, they would give him something to do in the evenings when he wasn't practicing his magic. When Uncle Vernon got home, Dudley was immediately appeased by his gift: a brand new Game Boy Colour. He began wearing his thumbs out on it straight away, so Harry was left to his own devices in his room until he had to cook dinner.

Before Harry went to bed, he made plans to get the letter the next morning. At six am, his alarm clock rang from under his pillow where he'd put it the night before so it wouldn't wake the Dursleys in the morning. He was going to sneak out of the house and meet the postman before he got to number 4. Dressing quickly, he snuck down the stairs, avoiding the creaking floorboards that he'd memorised the night before. Not daring to turn on the light for fear of alerting his relatives, he crept towards the door, only to fall flat on his face as he tripped over something large.

"ARGHHHHH!" the large squidgy thing screamed. A few seconds later, lights clicked on upstairs, illuminating Harry, sprawled all over his uncle, who was wrapped in a sleeping bag. It looked like Uncle Vernon had, in a rare display of foresight, thought Harry might sneak out, and was determined to prevent him from doing so. Vernon shouted at Harry for about half an hour, before realising the time and rushing upstairs to get dressed whilst Harry hurriedly made breakfast. Just as Uncle Vernon was leaving for work, three letters dropped through the post box, all addressed to Harry. Harry sighed. It looked like he wasn't going to get his letter today either. Harry wondered if he'd ever get it, and as he sat down to finish his breakfast, a lone tear ran down his cheek.

Half an hour later, Harry and Dudley were on their way to school. After registration, their first lesson of the day began. Harry had always found maths quite easy, but the Dursleys didn't like him doing better than Dudley. Because of this, they were both in the middle set, although Harry ranked near the top and Dudley was borderline for the bottom set. Maths and English were the only subjects that were tiered. The two Year Six classeswere split into three groups for those subjects, whilst the rest were taught to the individual classes. Towards the end of the maths class, one of the administrators walked in and handed something to Miss Upton, Harry's teacher. She looked slightly confused, but resumed teaching for the last five minutes of class. As everyone began to pack up before break, she called out.

"Harry, could you stay behind for a minute please?" Dudley let out a quiet laugh behind him.

"Ha, you're in for it now freak. Can't stay out of trouble for five minutes can you?" Harry groaned inwardly. He knew he hadn't done anything wrong, but he didn't know what else would warrant staying behind into his break. As everyone left the classroom, he nervously approached the teacher's desk.

"Um... you asked to see me Miss?" He said timidly.

"Oh, yes Harry. This arrived at school for you," she said handing him a thick envelope. "There was a note with it saying there was some sort of problem with you receiving it at home." Harry couldn't believe it. In his hand was a letter identical to the ones that had been coming through the door for the last three days.

"Thanks Miss, I've been waiting for this!" Harry gasped. She smiled, and turned back to her desk. Harry ran off to the library to read his letter, as he knew no-one would bother him there. Hiding in the corner furthest from the door, he sat down and finally opened his letter.

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry_

_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_

_(Order of Merlin, 1__st__ Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,_

_Supreme Mugwump, . of Wizards)_

_Dear Mr Potter_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all the necessary books and equipment for your study. As our records indicate that you live with non-magical persons, a representative from the school will visit on Saturday the 5__th__ of April in order to answer any questions or concerns you may have. _

_Should you wish to change the date, please owl us in advance or leave a letter at our box in The Leaky Cauldron, Charring Cross Road._

_Term will begin on Monday, 1__st__ September. Students will travel by train to the school on Saturday 30th August._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall,_

_Deputy Headmistress_

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry_

Above the name of the school, there was a crest identical to the one found on the seal of the envelope: a shield split into four, the corners occupied by a griffon, a snake, a raven, and a badger. Harry re-read the letter in a daze. These people knew he could do magic! There was a school for wizards! Questions flew through his mind. What did wizards learn? Owl them? A box in what sounded like a pub? A train to the school? How far away was it? Would he live there? Saturday the 5th of April? That's this weekend!

Harry looked in the envelope again to find the equipment list he'd missed the first time. Along with his uniform (who on earth wore robes?) and books, he was to buy a wand, a cauldron, scales, phials, and a telescope. Apparently he could also bring a pet, although the animals seemed quite odd. Owls, cats, or toads. He supposed that cats were fairly traditional for witches (a stereotype of an old crone and a black cat flitted across his mind), but owls and toads seemed odd. And, on top of that, he'd never heard of a school that allowed pets in the first place. He supposed wizards must do things differently. He spent the rest of the break looking at the letter, trying to work out how to tell the Dursleys that a wizard was going to turn up on the doorstep in three days time. He thought it might be best to conveniently forget, otherwise they'd probably run a mile, given their disposition towards 'freaky' things. The bell rang, and with a smile, he folded his letter back up, tucked it safely away in his pocket, and headed back to class.

That night, Harry slept better than he had in years. In a few months time, he'd go to a new school, miles away from Dudley, and maybe he could make new friends for the first time in his life. The next morning, there was tension once again at the breakfast table. When the post came, his uncle simply got up to fetch it himself. He came back with a smile on his face.

"Just a bill today!" he announced. Harry didn't realise it was possible for anyone to look that happy over receiving a bill. "That person must have realised he'd made a mistake at last!" he declared happily. Harry did his best to look sad at the news. It wasn't hard; he'd had plenty of practice at looking sad.

The pattern continued until Saturday morning. Each day, Uncle Vernon looked happier and happier, and Aunt Petunia had perked up too. As it was a Saturday, everyone except Harry had slept in later than normal, as they had neither work nor school. Harry woke even earlier than normal. He could hardly contain his excitement. He was going to meet a real wizard today! When the Dursleys got up, Harry began to get very nervous. He ate his breakfast quickly, and then busied himself with the washing up, so the Dursleys wouldn't notice. After he was finished, he went back to his room and tried to read, all the while his ears straining in anticipation of the doorbell ringing.

At exactly 12 o'clock, the doorbell rang.

-End of Chapter 5-

**Well that's the longest chapter I've written. I hope you enjoyed it! Yes, I skipped the whole hut-on-the-rock crap. Why bother to send several hundred letters when you can just send it to somewhere else to make sure Harry gets it? Please review and let me know what you think. The next chapter will be the last before he goes to Hogwarts, so please be patient. **

**Authors Notes**

**The bedroom discussion: ** Every kitchen door I have ever seen is either mostly glass, or saloon type doors that only hide part of the entrance. As such, it seems pointless for Harry and Dudley to be eavesdropping when they can be seen through the door. I certainly wouldn't have a private discussion in such a manner, and so had the Dursleys retreat to their bedroom.

**School & timing: ** Currently, it's around March, quite a while before Harry's birthday. The reason for this is simple: in England, we find out about secondary schools in March. Therefore, Hogwarts could potentially lose many muggle students that have already chosen a secondary school if everyone gets the letter in July.

**GBC: **Yes I know it's a year early (1997), but there weren't any consoles released in '97, I'd assume spoilt Dudley already had an N64 as it was released in '96. For notes on the year, see chapter 4.

**School Years: **in England it runs thus: Primary school: reception, year 1, year 2... year 6. Secondary School: Year 7 (1st year in Hogwarts), year 8... year 11, Lower Sixth, Upper Sixth. Key exams are year 3, year 6, year 9, year 11 (GCSE), lower sixth (AS level), upper sixth (A level). GCSE and A levels are equivalent to OWLS and NEWTS respectively.


	6. Chapter 6: Strangers

Harry Potter

And the Price of Ability

**Thanks for the reviews, etc for chapter 5. I have answered a few reviews at the bottom of this chapter, so we can get straight on with chapter 6. Please don't feel insulted if I have ignored your question, I have focussed instead on questions that I feel people would be more interested in. I would like anyone who's reviewed about dates and the year to read it, as this is dealt with for the last time. Special thanks to Dougal74 for the comment on (AN)'s, I hope this chapter will be much easier to read. I shall go back and edit the previous chapters. ****No story content will change****, just the layout and any grammar errors I spot. **

Chapter 6: Strangers

At exactly twelve o'clock, the doorbell rang. Harry nearly jumped out of his skin. Although he'd been waiting for it the moment he'd woken up, he'd feared that it wasn't real. That his letter, magic, this Hogwarts school, the prospect of escaping from the Dursleys- that all of it was fake, a figment of his imagination, that maybe he'd gone mad and was hallucinating from lack of food. The Dursleys knew nothing of this: what if the last few years of his life had been a lie fabricated by his own mind. Was he even at the Dursley's house? Was he in fact in a hospital, in a coma after his uncle had gone too far? All of that rushed through his mind within seconds of the doorbell ringing. It was probably a neighbour, a friend of Aunt Petunia's. Aunt Marge. He'd been a fool to believe he could escape. Dejected, he opened the door to his bedroom and headed towards the stairs. As he reached the top of them, the front door opened. Uncle Vernon's voice rose in anger from downstairs.

"Who the devil are you?!"

A woman's voice answered in a low, polite tone. Harry couldn't make out the answer, and crept downstairs to try to hear more, or catch a glimpse of the stranger at the door.

"What do you want?!" questioned Uncle Vernon, anger still quite evident in his voice. He probably thought it was a saleswoman, or even worse, a charity or religious worker come to convince him to give up his 'hard earned' cash or precious time in front of the TV. There was another reply from the stranger.

"WHAT!" roared Uncle Vernon. "THERE IS NO SUCH PERSON IN THIS HOUSE. GET OUT, NOW!" The unknown woman at the door stared at him and stood firm. Harry could see her now. She was a tall, stern looking woman with iron-grey hair, wearing a long black coat over a green knitted cardigan. Underneath that, she wore a long sleeved black blouse, completed by a full-length brown skirt. It was a very old-fashioned look, reminding Harry of some of the pictures he'd seen of Victorian women. She held herself with dignity, and was clearly not pleased with Uncle Vernon's shouting. Harry was now close enough to hear her reply.

"How can you expect me to believe that there is no such person in the house, when I can see him stood there, plain as day, and looking exactly like his father did at that age?" she asked in a firm but polite voice that was wrought with a Scottish accent. As his uncle tried to splutter a nonsensical retort, she looked over his shoulder at Harry, who was halfway down the stairs. "Mr Potter, if you could please get ready, we shall be leaving." she finished in a no-nonsense voice that Harry could tell was used to being obeyed. Although he wanted to stay and see what would happen with his uncle, his feet had betrayed him and he found himself walking upstairs to fetch his coat and shoes, twisting his head around to try to see what was happening below. The adults' voices were rising, and it was clear what they were saying.

"We have received no communication to tell us that Mr Potter will be going anywhere other than Hogwarts!" The lady was saying firmly. Harry noticed Dudley peaking out of his bedroom ahead, looking puzzled. Harry ignored him, as his uncle was had started yelling again.

"I WILL NOT PAY FOR A BUNCH OF CRACKPOT OLD FOOLS TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" screamed Uncle Vernon. Having been on the receiving end of his uncle's voice on many occasions, Harry knew that the lady had most likely been covered in a light spray of spittle. He turned round, and could make out the lady calmly wiping her face with a handkerchief that had appeared from nowhere before responding.

"The choice is not _yours_ to make, _Mr Dursley._" she said coldly. "Mr Potter has been on the Hogwarts register since the day he was born. His tuition has been taken care of, and will not impose upon you. I do not appreciate being called a fool, and as it is clear that you will show neither courtesy nor manners to me, I will wait here for Mr Potter's return and then we shall adjourn.

"How dare y-" Uncle Vernon was suddenly quieted. It had happened so fast, Harry hadn't seen what happened. All of a sudden, his uncle was flustering, his mouth was opening and closing, but nothing was coming out, and the lady had a grim smile on her face.

"I warned you, I will not tolerate being spoken to in such a manner." She said coolly, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. His uncle's shocked look had disappeared, and been replaced with a look of pure rage. He took half a step forwards, drawing his fist back, and the lady made a swift movement. In a split second, there was a stick in her hand, it was pointed towards Uncle Vernon, a red light shot out of it, and Harry's uncle fell to the floor, where he lay dead still. This brought a shriek from Aunt Petunia, who had been watching the scene unfold from the end of the hall.

"Vernon!" she cried, rushing towards him. Her eyes flashed towards the strange lady as she knelt by his side. "What have you done to him?" she demanded.

"He is merely stunned. Unconscious. I will wake him up when I leave, but he'll be groggy for a bit." the lady replied. Looking up at Harry, she spoke to him once more. "Do hurry up Mr Potter; I have no wish to wait here all day." Harry immediately ran into his room and grabbed a huge sweater from the bed, before running back downstairs to the strange lady.

"At last." she said. "Now, out the door with you. Enervate." This last word was accompanied by a jab with the stick in her hand, directed towards Uncle Vernon. Immediately, his uncle's eyes popped open, and began darting around the ceiling. With a last glance towards Aunt Petunia, who said nothing, they left.

"Now, Mr Potter, I am sorry for all of that, but I could not stand to be in the presence of that man for one moment longer." the lady apologised. "Let me introduce myself. I am Professor McGonagall, deputy headmistress and transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts."

"Pleased to meet you, Professor," Harry said, remembering his manners.

"Now, this is just short meeting, in order to introduce you to magic. Although you are of wizarding blood, I am aware that you have been living with muggles- non magical people- and as such, must have questions about the wizarding world that they have been unable to answer," Professor McGonagall said. Harry stopped and stared at her.

"My parents were wizards?" he asked, disbelieving.

"Your father was a wizard, yes, from a very old family. Your mother was a witch. Surely you have been told this? How else was any accidental magic explained?" Professor McGonagall looked at Harry in askance. She looked a tiny bit shaken, but that was nothing compared to how she looked after his reply.

"My aunt and uncle don't speak about my parents. I'm forbidden to ask about them. All I know is they died in a car crash when I was very young. I haven't done any accidental magic in three years; I stopped because I was punished for it. I... I thought I was the only one that could do it. They always said I was a... a freak." Harry finished, almost in tears. This was the first time he'd told anyone about his home life. The Professor looked very angry and very scary.

"Punished for something you couldn't control? Let me assure you, you are most certainly not a freak. You are..." she paused to look at him more closely "...a perfectly normal, if slightly underweight, ten year old wizard. And your parents most certainly did not die in a car crash. I shall be having harsh words with your aunt and uncle when we return. (And Albus.)" The last two words she muttered under her breath, and Harry didn't quite catch them. He wasn't really interested either.

"Didn't die in a car crash? Then how did they die?" he asked. An unsettled expression appeared on Professor McGonagall's face.

"I will tell you, I promise," she said. She took one glance at Harry's upset face and quickly added, "It's not that I don't want to tell you, but a street in broad daylight is hardly the best of places. We are just heading away from prying eyes now, and then we will be free to talk privately about everything." Harry looked somewhat assured, but still a little doubtful. They resumed walking, and made for a park not too far from Privet Drive. Once in the park, they headed for a small copse of trees. Professor McGonagall looked around cautiously to make sure there was no one nearby, then addressed Harry again.

"Now Mr Potter, I am going to take you somewhere with a magical technique called Apparation. We are going to go to a small village near Hogwarts, called Hogsmeade."

"Why are we going there?" Harry asked in a small voice. He had realised all of a sudden that this woman had essentially just taken him from his house. He wanted to get away from the Dursleys as much as possible, and anywhere she was taking him could be no worse than where he was, but she was still a stranger. He'd had "Stranger Danger!" drilled into his head at school by people who didn't really care about him, but all the same, he had no proof this woman was who she said she was, and he was suddenly worried. The Professor smiled at him, calm and reassuring.

"We are going there so we can discuss the wizarding world in private. There are some things you need to be made aware of that I can neither divulge here in public, nor in Diagon Alley."

"Where's that, Professor McGonagall?" asked Harry.

"It's the main wizarding area within London," she replied. "However, it's extremely busy, and I would not want you to be put off by the large crowds and lack of privacy." Harry nodded in understanding. "Normally, talks like this would be conducted in the student's house, but I didn't think that best with your aunt and uncle. Because of this, we are heading to Hogsmeade, where it is quiet, and we can avoid notice. Now, take hold of my hand." Harry tentatively reached out and took hold of the offered hand. She noticed his reticence, and smiled at him again, her stern features breaking into a more grandmotherly look. "Hold on tight." she said, and as Harry gripped her arm in response, she turned suddenly. There was a loud crack, which startled a few birds from the trees surrounding them, and all of a sudden, the clearing was empty.

In the same instant, there was another loud crack over four hundred miles away. In an alley in a quiet, rustic village, Professor McGonagall appeared with a small boy clinging onto her arm, his eyes bulging.

"Welcome to Hogsmeade," she said to the boy, who was looking about in wonder as they walked out into a small street. He had apparently been... transported, for lack of a better word, to an English village sometime in the 1800's. The houses all looked to be of Tudor era, with overhanging first floors, and wooden framed walls. Here and there were buildings with a stone ground floor- one was a pub, with a creaking sign swinging in the wind proclaiming it to be the Three Broomsticks. This appeared to be the main shopping part of town: the alley had emerged next to a shop called Honeydukes, the windows of which were filled with jars containing all manner of strange looking sweets. There weren't many shops, about twenty in total, and the cobbled high street quickly gave way to a well-used dirt lane with houses fronted by small gardens. There weren't many people around, but Professor McGonagall quickly bustled him over the road into the Three Broomsticks. She led him through a thick oak door into a large room. Old but sturdy looking tables stood on a clean flagstone floor, with booths lining the far wall, one of which held the only patrons: a group of elderly men who were talking happily as they sipped from their glasses. On the left hand side was a short, highly polished bar, behind which stood a large smiling lady who called out to them in a singsong voice.

"Minerva! How are you? What brings you here today?"

"Hogwarts business, Rosmerta," the Professor replied. "Can we use the private room please?"

"Of course, Minerva," replied Rosmerta the barmaid, smiling happily, stepping around the bar, and beckoning them towards a door in the far wall. "Good heavens, is that Harry Potter?" she asked in a low voice as they neared her. Harry nodded somewhat shyly, overwhelmed after having apparently travelled back in time two hundred years and now being spoken to by the smiling Rosmerta. "Well, there's no mistake! You look just like your father! Hopefully you won't be as much trouble for the poor teachers." She chuckled. "Here you go, if you need anything, just call," she finished, stopping at a door.

"Could we have a butterbeer and a gillywater please?" Professor McGonagall asked. Rosmerta nodded and disappeared, and with that, the two of them entered the room. It was small, but comfortable. A table with four chairs around it stood to one side, whilst the other held a sofa and two armchairs that surrounded an unlit stone fireplace. Harry thought it would be nice and cosy in winter. Professor McGonagall took one of the high backed armchairs, and Harry decided to take the sofa.

"Well then, Mr Potter. Shall we get started?" Professor McGonagall asked. Harry nodded. "As you are no doubt aware, we are both capable of doing magic. It is a rare gift, and one we do not tend to advertise for fear of people's reaction. I'm sure that you can understand what I mean by that, having met your _charming_ uncle earlier."

"Yes, Professor," Harry replied. "Professor, how did you know I was magical?"

"As I mentioned earlier, your parents were a witch and wizard. In fact, I taught them when they were your age. They were two of the brightest minds in the school, even if your father didn't always put his to the most responsible of uses... Hogwarts has a special book that records all magical children born in Britain. Those from wizarding families are aware of the school, having had most of their members pass through it already, and any from a non-magical background, more commonly referred to as 'muggleborns', are notified, and receive a visit from a member of staff to explain. You are a special occasion; it's rare that a child from a wizarding family requires a visit, but the headmaster thought it wise in this case." Harry was openly staring at her, trying to process all this new information. If what she was saying was true, there must be loads of other children like him, who could all do magic! He wanted to know more about the school itself.

"What's the school like? How do I get there?" he asked, his usual reticence around other people flying out the window.

"Hogwarts is a boarding school, located in a castle not far from where we are now. It has very large grounds, which can't be found by non-magical people, and- ah, thank you Rosmerta," she said, as the lady entered with the drinks she had ordered. "Here you go, Mr Potter," she said, sliding a glass of pale, yellowy liquid towards him.

"Thank you," he said, taking a sip. A second later, his eyes bulged. This was delicious! He'd never had anything this good to drink, although as he'd only drunk milk and water, this wasn't entirely surprising. Professor McGonagall smiled at him, and continued with her speech.

"Now, as I was saying, the students remain at Hogwarts throughout the winter, spring, and summer terms. Students may either go home at Christmas and Easter, or they may remain in the castle with the staff and any other students that choose to do so." Harry grinned at this; he'd be away from the Dursleys for almost a year at a time! "Students study at Hogwarts for seven years, and take their Ordinary Wizarding Levels, or OWLs , at the end of fifth year, and their Magical Instruction Completion Exams, or MICE, at the end of seventh year. Is there anything else you would like to know?" Harry thought about the list of equipment he had to get.

"Where do I get all the things I need for school? And how will I pay for it? I only have about one pound fifty saved up," he asked.

"That's not a problem," Professor McGonagall replied. Your parents left you some money at Gringotts, the wizarding bank. Wizards use a different currency to muggles." She pulled out a handful of coins, and put them on the table. "This," she said, pointing to the small bronze coin, "is a knut. There are twenty nine knuts to a sickle," she tapped a silver coin that looked like a ten pence piece, "and seventeen sickles to a galleon." The last was a gleaming gold coin, slightly larger than a two-pound coin. "We will visit Gringotts on your eleventh birthday, and buy your school equipment and wand, as is our custom."

"Custom?" Harry asked.

"All wizards and witches get their wands on their eleventh birthdays. This is why the cut-off for each wizarding school year is the end of August, in order to make sure all children have their wand by the time they reach Hogwarts."

"But why do I need a wand?" Harry asked, rather confused.

"Why to do magic with, of course. You can't just wave your hands and expect something to happen, you need a focus for your magic to express itself through."

"But I can already do some magic!" Harry protested.

"Yes, accidental magic. All children use it. It's due to a build up of magical pressure within themselves, and is usually happens when you're feeling particularly emotional. Once a wizard acquires their wand, and performs spells on a regular basis, this no longer happens. However, if I recall, you said that you hadn't done any accidental magic in three years? That's very unusual."

"That's because my magic was intentional, Professor." Harry replied. "Look." And with that, he focussed on the air between them and a small ball of light appeared. Professor McGonagall's stern look slid off her face in shock.

"How did you... even I can't create light without a wand." She looked confused. Harry decided not to show her the rest of his abilities, it would create too much fuss, and besides, it would be useful if he ever needed it in a pinch. Although how on earth creating light or fixing a plate would help him, he didn't know. The teacher seemed to have recovered a little now. "Well, that's very impressive, Mr Potter." She said. "However, one needs a wand in order to perform more complex spells. Furthermore, there is very little written about wandless magic, so it would be very hard to teach you anything more than what you know already. For example..." She took out her wand, and waved it over the coffee table between them. The glasses on the table floated upwards, and the table began to make odd movements. After a few seconds, Harry realised it was doing a very strange four legged dance. All of a sudden, it stopped, and the glasses landed back on the table.

"Now that we have that out of the way, we have a more important issue to discuss. You told me earlier that your parents died in a car crash, and you clearly don't know much about them," Professor McGonagall said, a sad tone in her voice. She hadn't expected she'd have to tell the boy this. "Your parents were wonderful people, and loved you very much. I knew them fairly well, as I was their head of house at Hogwarts, and got to know them much better when they became head boy and girl. We also saw a little of each other after they graduated, and they were so happy when they had you." Harry had tears in his eyes as he heard this. His aunt and uncle had never said anything about his parents, and for years he had believed they died in a car crash caused by drunkenness or carelessness. This portrayal of his parents as a young, kind, smart, loving couple was what he'd dreamed of and wanted them to be. Professor McGonagall wasn't finished yet though.

"At the time you were born, the wizarding world was extremely divided. There was a dark wizard, who came to power and was greatly feared by much of the wizarding population. He was too strong to be fought, and he and his followers were ruthless. They would kill anyone who opposed them, and believed that any magical person who wasn't a 'pureblood'- the child of two magical people- was unworthy of their magic, and should be killed or enslaved for the good of the magical community." Harry was shocked to hear this. This dark wizard sounded like a lethal version of his uncle. What was he getting himself into? "Your mother was one such witch. She was a muggleborn, and even though she was one of the smartest and best witches I have ever met, she was one of those targeted by the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Your-"

"-Who?" Harry cut it.

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Wizards and witches feared to speak his name, and still do, remembering the terrible suffering he brought on us all."

"But what was his name?" Harry asked.

"His name was Lord... Lord V-Voldemort." Professor McGonagall said reluctantly. It is a name I and many others do not like to speak; I will not use it again. As I was saying," she frowned at him, clearly not used to being interrupted, "your mother was one of those targeted by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Your parents, and several others, were part of a small group of resistance against him. Unfortunately, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named found out where they were, and he... he went to their house on... on October 31st, 1987. He... I'm sorry Harry." She pulled a lace handkerchief from a pocket, and dabbed at her eyes. "He killed your parents. Then he tried to kill you."

Harry felt as though a huge hole was draining away all his emotions. He'd been so happy to find out that he wasn't alone in the world, then that he would be leaving the Dursleys. He had his dream about his parents realised: they weren't as bad as him, they were as good as him! They were people he could aspire to be like! And now, he learnt that this Lord Voldemort had taken them away from him because they refused to bow down to his evilness. His parents had been good, and killed for it. The hole of emptiness grew into anger. Then the impact of Professor McGonagall's last words hit home.

"T-_tried_ to k-kill...me?" Professor McGonagall nodded sadly.

"You were just a baby. Fifteen months old, and the most feared dark wizard of all time turned his wand on you. He tried to kill you, and his curse rebounded upon himself. He was destroyed, and you were left with nothing but that scar on your forehead." Harry unconsciously reached up to touch the lightning shaped mark. "You survived a curse that had killed all who stood before it, ending the reign of terror that had gripped Britain. You became a symbol of hope for wizards throughout the world, for doing the impossible without knowing it. And now, you're taking your first steps into the wizarding world."

-End of Chapter 6-

**Authors Notes**

**Hogsmeade & McGonagall: ** I felt that Hagrid was a bit tactless. Taking an extremely famous 11-year-old boy who's not great with people, and has yet to come to terms with everything, into a crowded pub full of strangers, and then basically announcing who he is? McGonagall would have a lot more tact than that.

**NEWTs & MICE: **Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests? Really? So, how many Stupidly Hard Educational Diplomas did you get? At least OWLs actually stands for something believable. I was trying to go for BATs (something Advanced Tests) but couldn't think of a B. If anyone has a better idea, let me know!

**Purebloods:** Harry is often described as a half-blood. But both his parents are magical. Yes, Lily's a muggleborn, but the fact is James married a witch. Seamus was a half blood- dad a muggle, mother a witch, and you can't class Harry the same as him. Surely marrying a muggle is worse than marrying a muggleborn in the eyes of Voldy? I'd be interested to hear opinions on this.

**Response to reviews**

** UnuKunoichi: Yes, Harry was stupid in showing the letter. But think about it. He was told to go and get the post; he's not on guard as it's something he does daily with no problem. He receives his first letter. EVER. Remember, Harry has no friends, no contact with anyone aside from the D's, who certainly wouldn't write him a letter. As such, he has no protocol for such an event. He doesn't know it's associated with his magic. Therefore, the emotion overriding everything is shock. Someone wants to talk to him. This reaction is still present when the letter is taken away from him. He **_**shouts**_** at Uncle Vernon, something he knows is likely to get him punished. He deliberately tries to sneak out of the house in the morning. He has no keys, so can't get back in, and the Ds aren't going to be happy with that. The postman generally arrives during breakfast- it will be noticed that he's gone. He hasn't even considered using magic. Harry is currently running on emotions, and as we all know, people do stupid things when that happens.**

**Timeline: I have talked about this in both chapters 4 and 5. I know nothing of the early '90's, as I was born in 1990. TPS was first published in '97, and I read it around that time. At the time, I felt it was written for the "here and now". There is so little technology in the books that there is nothing to pin it to a specific time. Because of this, I have no qualms about moving the year forwards. In this fic, the year is 1997, not 1991. Deal with it. Any dates mentioned in the book will be changed respectively.**

** Dougal74: Thank you very much for your words on my writing style. I hadn't considered the impact to the flow on my story. I will be cutting out the (AN)'s and will instead leave a few notes at the bottom when I feel they are necessary.**

**I had hoped this chapter would be the last before Hogwarts starts, but it would have been too long if that was the case. The next chapter will be posted in the next couple of days, and that really **_**will**_ **be the last chapter before Hogwarts. Thank you for being patient with me so far! I'm curious as to why Chapter 5 has received less than half the views of any other chapter I've posted so far. Was it too long, or is there anything else that put people off of it? I'm open to your thoughts, so please review or PM me and I'll value and consider your input. Thanks for reading! **

** ~Illusions**


	7. Chapter 7: Ticktock

**Harry Potter**

**And the Price of Ability**

**Apologies for the late chapter. I had hoped to have this one up almost two weeks ago, with chapter 8 going up last week. Most of the time delay is me bouncing ideas against a brick wall, and then going and reading other fics. Time management is not one of my strong points. Anyway, enjoy chapter 7, chapter 8 will be up as soon as it's done. I don't have a beta, so I try not to rush it so as to minimise miskates **

Chapter 7: Ticktock

That night, Harry lay in his bed trying to understand everything that had happened to him that day. His entire view of the world had changed in the few hours he'd spent with Professor McGonagall. That morning, he was a neglected, underfed ten-year-old, who had been told throughout his life that he was a freak, had no worth, and was unloved by everyone, including his good-for-nothing parents who had nearly killed him in the car-crash that had claimed their drunken, worthless lives. Now, he was the son of loving parents who had died trying to save his life from the murderous rampage of one of the most evil men ever to walk the earth. Parents who, against all the odds, had somehow succeeded at the cost of their own lives. He was famous, worshipped by people nationwide for something that he had no recollection of, had had no control over. At the price of his parents lives and ten years of misery. He would trade the fame that he didn't know of for an _hour_ with his parents in a heartbeat.

However, he was a fighter. He was resilient. He wanted to _live_. He'd turned some of the tables on his aunt and uncle, his supposed _guardians_, by stealing food and fooling them into thinking that he was weak. He was largely healthy, and fit. His diet of tinned fruit and meat, coupled with regular exercise had provided him with a lean, muscled physique that no one in his class could match. They were all chubby, spoilt by their parents with sweets and junk food and televisions; his lack of these luxuries had made him fast and strong. The exercise still left him a little hungry, but he didn't dare steal more. It was wrong, and besides, it was a good type of hunger. It was a hunger that he had earned, that spurred him on so that in the future there would come a day when he would never be hungry again but wouldn't be greedy. It was his resistance, that he chose the hunger rather than have it forced upon him. His strength was in his stamina, speed, and agility. The stamina was especially important for his magic.

Ah yes, his magic. That 'freakish behaviour' which was actually a rare talent. Something that he had practiced so that he could do things not even an adult witch could do. _McGonagall had said his parents would be proud._ Five words that had moved him to tears that Dudley's fists couldn't produce. She had encouraged him to keep practicing, and told him that in three months time, she would come and take him shopping for everything he needed.

Apparently, money wasn't a problem either. She'd told him that his parents had left him a considerable amount with the wizards' bank. Unfortunately, as he didn't have the key to his vault, he couldn't claim access to it until he was eleven. He was puzzled by this, until she explained a safety clause implemented by the goblins at the behest of wizarding parents. As the parents of a wizard would keep the key to their children's vault, there had been concerns that a child would go to the bank and claim their key as 'lost'. If a new key were to be forged, any existing copies would be destroyed by the magic that protected the vaults. In other words, wizarding parents didn't want to give their young children access to vast sums of money without being able to control their spending. In magical Britain, eleven was viewed as the age of accountability. The children could be held responsible for their actions, given wands to learn magic, and access to their vaults for spending. They were also considered accountable for their crimes: a wizard could be tried and punished after their eleventh birthday. It was viewed as a measure of encouraging maturity, given that the children would be eligible to attend school away from home for ten months a year. Of course, many families still limited their children's spending using a trust or allowance controlled vault separate to the main family vault, ensuring that the child couldn't bankrupt the family.

Yes, Harry's world had certainly changed, especially with Professor McGonagall's final act for the day. Furious at the way his relatives had treated him, and at the restrictions which prevented her from taking him shopping (the inability to access his vault and the obvious time constraint key among them), she had set to work on the Dursleys the moment they got back to Number 4, Privet Drive. Storming past an irate Vernon Dursley, she had practically dragged Harry upstairs before demanding to be told which room was his. Upon entering said room, she had flourished her wand, muttering a complicated string of words as she did so. Her magic had wrought an extraordinary effect on the room. The pale threadbare carpet, colour previously unidentifiable, had turned into a thick, luxuriant deep-red carpet. The broken and bent toys cluttered in one corner had vanished, replaced with a sturdy wooden desk and a new set of drawers. The lacklustre paint, which had been peeling from the walls and ceiling in places, was suddenly a fresh, clean cream colour, avoiding the sterility of white and instead adding subtle warmth to the room. The chipped window sash was repaired; the window now able to open and close properly. The bookcase, once shabby but clean, was now looking as good as new, the eclectic array of books now sorted into order by subject and looking as though they'd just been purchased. The thin duvet had fluffed out a little, and the bed was now a _lot_ more comfortable than before.

And best of all, the small chest of drawers containing Harry's clothes had given a great shudder, the drawers popping open and belching the clothes out. In midair, the clothes had flapped around before altering themselves: holes were darned, colours refreshed, and the clothes resized to fit him. They still weren't new, but they were now in good condition. At the end of this amazing display, Professor McGonagall had turned to Harry, a slight smile on her face.

"I'm sorry I can't do more, Mr Potter," she had said. "But this should be a lot more comfortable for you now. The clothes will not be as good as new ones; I recommend you take the opportunity to buy a new wardrobe when we visit Diagon Alley. But for now, they fit, and will be a lot more comfortable for you."

Harry had been lost for words. This was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him, and he tentatively repaid it with the first sign of affection he'd shown towards an adult since the night his parents had died. The slightly surprised professor wrapped one arm around him as he hugged her loosely around her waist.

"Thank you." He mumbled into her cardigan. She smiled, and told him not to worry. With that, she had bid him farewell and left him in his brand new room. There had been some angry noises from downstairs, and two loud bangs. Harry assumed he would find out what caused them later when his aunt and uncle came to shout at him for the trouble he had caused today. But for once, even that failed to dim his spirits for five minutes. He'd had the best day of his life, couldn't wait to visit Diagon Alley, and was counting down the days until he started Hogwarts, in one hundred and forty six days time. Which would be followed by over three hundred Dursley-free days. It was a dream come true.

-x-X-x-

That evening, whilst Harry lay on his bed marvelling at his amazing day, an incensed Professor McGonagall was letting one Albus Dumbledore know exactly what she thought of him.

"He was SO THIN Albus!" She screamed. "His clothes hung off of him like a flobberworm skin, because they came nowhere near to fitting him! His room looked like a junk shop! What on EARTH possessed you to leave the boy with those vile muggles I'll never know! And why I EVER allowed it to happen is something I shall wonder for the rest of my life!"

"My dear Minerva," Dumbledore stated calmly, sitting behind his desk on a purple leather armchair and peering serenely at her over the rim of his glasses. "I can assure you that Harry is perfectly fine in that house. Why, they are his own flesh and blood!"

"HIS OWN FLESH AND BLOOD?! They treated him like filth! Do you remember how Sirius Black came to school? How Severus Snape came? They too were treated like that, and look how they turned out! I will not stand by and allow you to continue turning the saviour of the wizarding world dark! I warned you that they were the worst of muggles when you left him on their doorstep- _their doorstep, Albus_- and you ignored me and told me it would be fine!"

"Minerva, you know full well I would trust Professor Snape with my life. He has atoned for his wrongs, as Sirius is atoning for his. Harry has committed no wrongs, and will be a fine student in time. My instruments would have warned me if anything was wrong, and they are all normal." He said, gesturing to a large array of silver gadgets that stood on a table under the window to his left. He didn't mention that those instruments only showed the present readings, and needed to be watched constantly in order to know exactly what was going on. Professor McGonagall's sharp Scottish tone cut into his momentary distraction, drawing his attention back to her.

"Albus, he only knew he was a wizard because he's established some form of rudimentary control over his magic! All because he was beaten if he used it! He'd never heard of Hogwarts before and... and... Albus, he _didn't know the names of his parents!"_ She spat out the last words. Albus Dumbledore stared at her.

"You must be mistaken. Petunia knew all about wizards, she would have told her nephe-"

"That whale of a husband of hers told me he'd 'not have a freak like that in the house' and that they'd 'tried to stomp it out of him'!" McGonagall cut in. "Now as I am clearly not having an effect on you, I am going to go and get a much needed scotch! And woe betide you if that poor child ends up as dark as the one he destroyed!" With that, she left the office, leaving a slack-jawed Dumbledore behind her. In all the time he'd known her, she had never treated him with anything other than reverence. Come to think of it, the only ones who had shown that sort of defiance were Grindelwald, Voldemort and his minions, and Molly Prewett. Thank goodness she now took out that infamous temper on those twins of hers; they'd only been at the school for two years and had already broken the record for the most howlers in a year. He was the leader of the light, and in the eyes of the wizarding world, largely infallible. Surely there was no way he could have made such a mistake with Harry Potter?

He glanced at his instruments again, and wished there was a way to get the readings from over the day rather than just the present. He'd seen muggle devices which produced reams of paper with lines squiggled all over them, and wished there was some way to replicate this for magical devices. It struck him sometimes how strange backwards wizards were: he relied on a puff of smoke or a variance in height of a small silver ball to tell him the state of Harry's magical outbursts, the strength of the wards surrounding him, and numerous other facts, all ascertained from miles away, but they weren't capable of producing a thin paper like that the muggles used. All because none of the pureblood families would willingly give up the thick parchment and quills that their great-great-great-grandfathers had been so fond of. He had an amusing muggle fountain pen that he used sometimes: it was a Scheaffer Snorkel, which extended a tube from the nib to suck up ink when you twisted a section at the back. An ingenious mechanism, and you could write for hours without having to refill from an inkwell. Back to the matter at hand. The instruments appeared normal. Harry was in good health, inactive, and not performing any magic. The wards were as strong as they'd ever been. There was nothing he could do, and no indication that any action was necessary. With a sigh, he got up and fetched a large, leather-bound book from one of the many shelves in the room, and sat back down in his armchair. Retrieving a sherbet lemon from the bowl on his desk and popping it into his mouth, he settled back to read.

-x-X-x-

The repercussions from that first visit took a long time to die down. Harry had gone downstairs the next morning to find the kitchen looking perfectly normal. He'd been hesitant to leave the sanctuary of his new room, but had surrendered to the need to use the bathroom, and then his thirst got the better of him. He wasn't sure what would await him after those two loud bangs the previous night, but he didn't want to give the Dursleys an excuse to be even angrier with him than they already were. By the time the three of them had assembled in the kitchen, Harry already had the bacon and eggs fried, and was just finishing off the fried bread.

Uncle Vernon had dropped into his seat with a grunt, whilst Dudley's chair groaned slightly as he sat down. In contrast, Aunt Petunia sat almost daintily on her chair. Harry honestly couldn't figure out what she would find attractive in such a large husband, or why she would let her son become so obese, but he'd never dare ask her. It was just one of life's mysteries to him, though some of those mysteries seemed to have been solved lately. In any case, he _really_ didn't want to know about his aunt's sex life. He only hoped his mum hadn't looked as bad as his aunt did.

Harry served up breakfast, leaving himself a small portion. He had just sat down to start eating it when his uncle spoke up.

"What do you think you're doing, boy?" He growled. Harry gulped nervously.

"Eating breakfast?" he replied quietly.

"Why do you think you deserve any after that performance yesterday?" his uncle hissed venomously. "You know you're not allowed visitors, let alone anyone like _that._ If you wanted breakfast, you should have gone with her to live with the rest of the freaks." Harry sighed. He was hungry after yesterday's events, but he didn't want Uncle Vernon to do anything about the new conditions of his bedroom. He shoved the plate towards uncle, who promptly split the bacon and eggs with Dudley. They both dived into the stolen food, and their forks entered their mouths at almost exactly the same time. At which point there was a blinding flash of light.

When Harry's eyes recovered from the flare, he immediately struggled to stop himself from laughing, whilst Aunt Petunia just screamed. Dudley and Uncle Vernon, sitting next to each other, did nothing. Until they looked at each other, at which point they started squealing. Their faces, where before so pudgy and alike, were still identical. However, they now featured very prominent pig snouts that were the cause of their squealing. Their beady eyes turned on Harry, and he held their gaze for all of ten seconds before he gasped "It wasn't me!" and ran from the room. In the safety of his bedroom, he'd let his laughter out, whilst listening to the frantic sounds coming from downstairs.

The pig snouts had remained until the end of the day, although Harry didn't find this out until he ventured out for breakfast the next morning. However, it appeared the snouts weren't a one-off event. Whenever Dudley or Uncle Vernon tried to take something from Harry, or when they were particularly mean to him, the snouts reappeared. Aunt Petunia got an even more embarrassing treatment: her long, blonde hair, which she spent so much time maintaining every day would frizz up, knot, and turn a vivid shade of purple. They'd not let him eat any breakfast (he'd avoided dinner the previous day and stuck to the tinned food in his room), and the snouts and hair had appeared.

Of course, Dudley refused to go to school, which meant that for once, Harry had a very nice Dudley free day. Upon returning home, Harry was very relieved to find his room intact, and hid there for the rest of the afternoon. For some reason, his Uncle would thump up the stairs, snorting angrily through his snout, but turn around the second he got to Harry's door. Once more, the alterations wore off by the evening. The Dursleys took a few days to realise that anything done to Harry would result in them having a very bad day. Aunt Petunia had cottoned on first and told her son and husband, but both Dudley and Uncle Vernon were too angry with Harry to control their tempers and spent five consecutive days with snouts before they got the message.

-x-X-x-

When Professor McGonagall rang the doorbell to Number 4, Privet Drive on the 31st of July, she had a small, determined smile on her face. This time, when Vernon Dursley opened the door, there was no shouting match. He merely turned into the house, and yelled up the stairs.

"BOY! Get your shoes on, get down here, and get out. NOW!" Whilst it wasn't quite what she had hoped for, Professor McGonagall waited for Harry on the doorstep. Barely thirty seconds after being called, Harry appeared at the top of the stairs, and when he saw who was at the door, he practically flew down them.

"Hello Professor McGonagall!" he said happily. He'd been waiting for this day for nearly four months, and was ready to take his first proper steps into the wizarding world. He barely counted the brief time in the Three Broomsticks as a foray into the world of wizards: he'd seen all of two witches and a small group of men who hadn't noticed him, and had seen a small street and the inside of a pub. Now, however, he was going to go to the largest wizarding street in England.

"Happy birthday Mr Potter," the witch replied, the small smile on her face widening a tiny bit as she saw the boy in good health and spirits. "As I told you on my last visit, your eleventh birthday is the day you officially become a wizard. At this, Uncle Vernon made a very disgruntled noise and practically shoved Harry out of the door and slammed it shut behind him. Harry could hear him stomping off down the hall. He turned his attention back to Professor McGonagall. "We shall be travelling to Diagon Alley, where we shall first visit Gringotts, the wizarding bank. After we conclude our business there, we shall take care of the rest of your shopping. Now, we shall be travelling by Apparation as before, so we shall return to that wood to start our journey.

They began to walk towards the park, and Harry asked about the happenings in the house since the last visit.

"Professor..." he began hesitantly, "Professor, what did you do to my aunt and uncle? How did they keep growing pig snouts and crazy hair?" Professor McGonagall smiled at him.

"Well, I suppose you have your father to thank for that." She replied. Harry looked at her in surprise. "Your father was an exceptionally gifted student when he was at school. Unfortunately, he usually directed that gift into causing trouble rather than getting on with his homework as your mother did. They would have both hated to see the way you were treated, and so I took a little... inspiration from him. As you probably noticed, your aunt, uncle, and cousin were punished if they were mean to you in any way. Your father would have most certainly approved. Though I'd rather you didn't mention what I did to anyone else. Strictly speaking, it was illegal, and furthermore, the other students and teachers would never let me forget it and see it as condoning mischief."

"Thank you..." Harry replied, a little distracted by thoughts on his father's character. He'd always thought his father would be fun, but couldn't imagine him being a trouble maker. Then a thought struck him. "Professor, why didn't the Dursleys ever come to my room?" he asked.

"I placed a Confundus Charm on your doorway," she explained. "Whenever someone went near it, they would forget what they went there for. And should they have made it past that, or seen your door open, I also cast a spell that made it look as though your room was the same as it was before I arrived."

"You mean you cast an illusion on the whole room? Then why didn't I see it differently?" Harry said, confused. Whenever he used his illusions, he could always see a faint glow of the original outline, but nobody else could.

"What do you know of Illusions?" Professor McGonagall asked, a puzzled look appearing on her face for the half a second it took her to regain control of her facial features. Harry realised that most muggle students wouldn't know anything about the nature of magic, and so covered himself to hide his abilities.

"Um... well, you said that you made it look different to how it actually was," he began. "Muggle magicians call that an illusion, where they make it look like they've done real magic, but actually changed something with their hands when the audience weren't looking, or tricked them with mirrors or something. But unless you know what you're looking for, it's really hard to spot."

"Well then, there's your answer," she smiled. "You knew what the room actually looked like, so the illusion didn't work on you. An illusion only works if you don't know what its hiding. Some powerful wizards, such as the headmaster, can tell if there's an illusion present, and from that can work on dispelling it." Harry gulped nervously. It looked like his illusion was going to be really tested when he arrived at Hogwarts, unless he changed it first.

By this time, they had reached the park. Unfortunately, as it was a glorious sunny day at the start of the summer holidays, the park was a lot busier than it had been in early April. They had to walk quite a bit further into the large park to find a secluded spot from with to apparate from. Once again, Harry took hold of Professor McGonagall's offered hand, and she turned on the spot. The loud crack was lost in the cacophony of the noisy children in the park.

-End of Chapter 7-

Thus ends chapter 7! Thanks to everyone who's reviewed or followed this story, and to those of you who've added it to their favourites. Congratulations to Beccydinosaur for being the 100th person to make it a favourite!

As a word of warning, I am not going to be letting on just yet about Dumbledore's relationship with Harry, so please don't ask questions about him in your reviews. Wait and see what happens!

Out of interest, has anyone worked out where the chapter titles come from yet?


	8. Chapter 8: Strange Highways part I

**Harry Potter**

**And the Price of Ability**

**I'd intended to make Chapter 7 about Diagon Alley and get Harry on the way to Hogwarts, and then Dumbledore appeared from under my hands and it was never going to happen. This chapter kept going on and on, so I've split it in two, but never fear! Double update for you! I'm sorry it's taken so long, it's a combination of me being very busy, and a small bit of writer's block in trying to make the second part work. I didn't want to upload the two chapters separately though. Enjoy!**

Chapter 8: Strange Highways, Part I

In the middle of central London, there was an entire street of shops that less than one percent of Londoners knew about, and even fewer people who could access it without assistance. It was a long, broad street, similar in size to many of the high streets that played a central part in the economy of the larger towns throughout England. There were several smaller streets which branched off of it: something which even those with an incredible sense of direction would find perplexing. It was not due to the streets and alleys criss-crossing each other to form a maze of shops; in fact most of them were dead ends, and it was incredibly easy to find your way around. No, it was due to the fact that at the bottom of the main street was a small pub which joined it with Charing Cross Road. And, if you stepped out of the pub on the muggle side, one would see shops on either side of it. And if one were to walk along Charing Cross Road and take any of the side streets, one would find that the buildings stretched back until they met another road. In short, there was simply no space to fit an entire street, let alone the offshoot alleys, into the space that existed on Charing Cross Road.

The hidden street had a rather odd feature at either end, not frequently found throughout wizarding Britain. A small courtyard, devoid of both shops and houses opened onto the main street. Although it would make the perfect place for an ambush, there were strong security measures in place. Nobody could stay inside the courtyard for more than a minute after entering or arriving, and only minors and those holding an Apparation License could do so. A sheet of parchment, watched by a Magical Law Enforcement Patrol Officer (or 'Lepo's as they were called) at all times, recorded every single person who arrived in the courtyard. Nobody could enter from the street, with the exception of Aurors and people accompanied by them. Outside, magical recording devices constantly monitored the street.

It was to the lower of these Apparation Points that Harry and Professor McGonagall arrived at. The watching 'Lepo nearly fell out of his seat as the name Harry Potter appeared on the parchment in front of him, but he held his post. There were only two times he was allowed to do anything: if a name appeared in violet ink, indicating a criminal, or red for a dark or dangerous wizard, he was to summon backup or Aurors respectively. And if an injured person came arrived, he could summon healers. The latter had never actually happened: most injured wizards still able to Apparate went straight to the healers or someone they trusted anyway.

Professor McGonagall led Harry through the archway onto the main street. Harry stopped and stared. The quiet of Hogsmeade hadn't prepared him for this. Professor McGonagall smiled. "This is Diagon Alley," she said, "home to the largest collection of magical shops on the British Isles. There is very little that can't be found here, or in the smaller alleys that surround it." Harry couldn't speak. They set off into the throng of people that filled the street, walking past buildings which sold goods Harry couldn't even comprehend. He saw bookshops, a pet shop, a stationers, what looked like a greengrocers but was filled with nothing he recognised, a sweet shop... the list went on. Professor McGonagall explained a little about the shops as they went up the street, but mostly let Harry look around in awe, or answered his questions.

"Professor, why is it called Diagon Alley?" He asked. "I mean, an alley is usually narrow, and this street is enormous!"

"Diagon Alley wasn't always this big," she replied. "It was once an alleyway off of Charing Cross Road, with just three shops along it. Only one of those is still in existence today, the others have all changed ownership several times."

"But if it was an alleyway, how did it get so big? And why didn't the muggles notice the odd shops?" Harry asked. It was something he really couldn't fathom, how such a huge street could be hidden so well.

"The original Diagon Alley had a charm over the whole area so that only wizards could see it." Professor McGonagall explained. "As wizards started to demand more and more trade, rather than just returning favours from neighbours and friends, Diagon Alley was expanded. Eventually, it grew so large that a wizard built a pub at the entrance, looking to make money from all the witches and wizards that passed through it on their way to the shops. However, we can't make it any bigger now, because we've reached the limit of the space- expanding charms." Harry nodded, satisfied with the answer. He looked away from the teacher and saw they were approaching an enormous, gleaming white building at the end of the street. Professor McGonagall saw where he was looking.

"That's Gringotts, our first stop for the day. It's the wizard's bank, run by goblins." Harry gulped, remembering the descriptions of goblins in his books. He knew they lived underground, and were vicious, evil creatures. They had been one of the chief enemies in his favourite book, The Hobbit.

However, when they ascended the marble steps of Gringotts, Harry was surprised to see that the two creatures standing in front of the great bronze doors looked little like the goblins he'd imagined. Their features were similar: short, muscled but slender, with very pointy ears and beak-like noses. However, their skin wasn't green at all; it was an odd sort of pale grey, tinged ever so slightly with pink. It certainly couldn't be confused with that of humans, but it looked neither dead nor evil. Both goblins were wearing shiny armour, consisting of a highly polished silvery breastplate, greaves, and vambraces, with chainmail and leather tunics beneath. Both guards looked quite ceremonial, but the stern looks on their faces and the razor sharp halberds they were holding spoke of a fierce dedication to their duty. Professor McGonagall led him through the heavy bronze doors, into a vast hall, filled with counters at which sat more goblins. They were different to the ones outside: physically the same, but instead wearing smart black suits. Some were serving wizards and witches, whilst one or two were weighing or inspecting small piles of gemstones. They approached a free teller, who looked up from his ledger and spoke to them in a slightly raspy voice. "Name and purpose?" The teller asked.

"Minerva McGonagall, escorting Harry Potter to his vault for a withdrawal." Professor McGonagall replied somewhat curtly.

"Do you have his vault key?" The goblin asked. Professor McGonagall withdrew the key from the small handbag she was carrying, and placed it on the desk in front of the teller. The teller inspected it briefly, before looking down at Harry.

"Mr Potter, is this your first visit to Gringotts?" The teller asked.

` "Yes, sir," Harry replied somewhat nervously, as the goblin displayed a row of sharp, pointy teeth.

"Are you of the accountable age?"

"He is. Today is his eleventh birthday." Professor McGonagall answered for him.

"Are you aware of Gringotts policies?"

"N-no sir," Harry replied. "I- I didn't know I had an account until a few months ago, and was told it would be best to wait."

"I see. Here is your vault key," said the teller, pushing the key back towards Harry. "Keep it safe. Do not let anyone else use it. If you lose it, contact us, and it will be destroyed. A replacement key can be made, but it will cost you ten galleons each time. You cannot access your vault without the key, unless you provide further identification, which you do not yet have. You may register your wand with us once you have one. You may clear other people to access your vault, and may make keys for them as well, at the same cost. Any bonded elves may also access your account, once they have been added to your access list." The goblin sneered at this last item, clearly showing how little he thought of bonded elves. Harry wasn't sure what a bonded elf was, or how he would obtain one, so ignored this last piece of advice. "You will be contacted by Gringotts if there is any change to your vaults. Once you obtain your majority, you will be able to access any vault you own. You will also be notified of any inheritances you come into," the goblin concluded. It seemed straightforward to Harry, who reached up and took the key from the desk. The goblin took a wicked looking black quill from a pot on his desk, and signed a piece of parchment, which he handed to Harry. "Join the queue over there, show this to the secretary, and do as you're told." The goblin said dismissively. Harry stared at him for a second, as the goblin ignored them completely and pulled a large sheaf of parchments from a drawer in his desk. Professor McGonagall nodded curtly, and began to walk off towards where the goblin had indicated.

"Th-Thank you for the explanation, sir." Harry said hurriedly before hastening to catch up with Professor McGonagall. The goblin looked up and raised an eyebrow at the retreating form of the boy, before going back to his work.

Harry joined Professor McGonagall, who was queuing at a desk at the back of the large hall. As he neared her, the elderly man in front of her stepped forwards, showed something to the goblin at the desk, and was promptly taken away through a door by another goblin. The first goblin wrote something on a piece of paper, and then looked up. Professor McGonagall stepped forwards, and Harry followed her. "Vault?" The goblin questioned. Harry looked at the piece of parchment in his hand.

"Six hundred and eighty seven, sir." He replied, handing the paper over. The goblin glanced at it, nodded, and a second goblin stepped up. Harry jumped slightly; he hadn't even noticed this goblin arrive.

"Vault six hundred and eighty seven, Griphook," the first goblin said dismissively. Griphook nodded, and walked through the door the elderly man had gone through previously. Harry and Professor McGonagall followed him.

To Harry's surprise, there wasn't a room on the other side of the door. Instead, there was a tunnel, still lined with marble, with two rails that disappeared into the glowing mouth. A single cart stood on the two rails, and it was to this that Griphook went. The small goblin jumped up onto a small seat near the front, leaving a cushioned bench behind him for Harry and Professor McGonagall. The moment they sat down, she turned to him and said "hold on tight. Harry looked at her curiously, but Griphook had pulled a small lever by his side and the cart shot off down the tracks. Harry was pushed back against the seat, and quickly grasped the bar in front of him. It was a good thing he did that, because the second they entered the glowing mouth of the tunnel, the cart plummeted downwards, Harry holding on for dear life. The track levelled out sharply a moment later, and the cart rattled off noisily into a tunnel carved from a dark rock. The tunnel twisted and fell, and occasionally split into different branches. Harry could caught fleeting glimpses of the tracks going into the other tunnels, and wondered who controlled the points on the tracks. It certainly wasn't Griphook, who was sitting serenely in the front, not even holding on to anything. Harry looked questioningly at the Professor, but she put a finger to her lips and then quickly returned her hand to the rail, holding on grimly.

After a multitude of twists and turns through the torch-lit passages, they suddenly burst out into a small cavern, where the cart finally slowed. It pulled over onto a small section of track next to a platform. Griphook got out of the cart, and walked briskly over to one of several doorways that were carved into the rock. Although not as ornate as the building upstairs, the doorway was still imposing, with two vicious looking stone warriors mounted on small plinths either side of the door. The door to the vault was slightly set back in the doorway, and was made from a dull bronze, with hundreds of runes carved into them. Harry thought he recognised one or two from the small textbook on the Vikings he'd used at school. There was a small hole on one side, and Griphook pointed to it silently. There was no need to state the obvious. Harry stepped forwards and dug his key out of a zipped pocket on the jacket he wore, glad that he'd put it somewhere safe rather than try and hold onto it during the manic cart ride. He slid the key into the lock, and turned it, thinking it odd that such a small key could open such a large door. But instead of a soft click, as one would expect for a lock that matched a small key, there was a loud rumbling noise. The door swung open slowly, and Harry gasped as the torches within the vault flared into life, illuminating the contents.

Harry stepped into the small vault, and stared around him. There was a neat, waist high pile of galleons occupying the area near him, and a small stack of sickles to one side of it. The rest of the vault was occupied by two chests, which Harry was immediately itching to open. He glanced at Professor McGonagall, who nodded, and Harry ran to the chests. He started with the one on the left, but was disappointed when it wouldn't open. Moving on to the second chest, he found it unlocked, and eagerly lifted the lid. It contained nothing but a letter addressed to him. He reached into the chest, and retrieved the letter. Opening it carefully, he unfolded the thick parchment to see a flowing feminine script in black ink. Tears formed in his eyes as he began to read the first contact he'd ever had with his parents.

_My dearest Harry,_

_At the time of writing this letter, I hope that you will never receive it. If you do, it means that we are not there to explain things to you, and that our attempt to evade Voldemort has failed. We are being hunted by him, but we must set things right so that if we succeed and you survive, you will be able to take care of yourself. _

_This is your personal vault. We have a separate vault within Gringotts, which you will be able to access when you come of age. In the meantime, we have provided you an allowance of fifty galleons per month, half of which is set aside for your guardian's use to provide you with clothes and food. Once you reach Hogwarts age, an extra two hundred galleons per year will be deposited to cover books and the other equipment you'll need for school. _

_The chest which contained this letter will receive my notes from Hogwarts at the END of each Hogwarts year. Your father and I do not wish you to become lazy and rely on us, you have to take your own notes and work at your magic to pass your exams. However, if there's anything you feel you don't understand before you start your next year, our notes will always be here to help. _

_The second chest contains a gift from your father. The key for it is charmed to appear within this chest in fourth year, when you have greater control over your magic than you do now. _

_I wish there was more I could write to you, to talk to you about. I'm sure if you're reading this, you'll have all sorts of questions about us, but I can't tell you everything about us in a letter. Sirius, Remus, Peter, Alice, and Marlene, as well as some of your teachers, will be able to tell you some tales about us I'm sure! We'll be watching over you, so behave! Your dad says to ignore that, and have fun, make friends, and try not to get caught if you do cause trouble. Enjoy Hogwarts, work hard, and have fun. Remember that no matter what has happened, we love you, and always will._

_Love, _

_Mum & Dad_

Harry couldn't prevent the tears from falling from his eyes as he sat alone in his vault, the letter in his hand. All his life, all he had wanted was the love from his parents, and he could feel the love in the words from his mum. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see Professor McGonagall smiling sadly. "Your parents were great, brave people," she said simply, her normally strict tone diminished and replaced by a soft, caring voice. "I know you don't want to leave, but please be brave for them, and honour their memories. They wouldn't want you to waste your life wishing they'd come back, they'd want you to face the world and find happiness." Harry wiped his eyes and got up shakily. He carefully refolded the letter, put it back in the envelope, and tucked it safely into his jacket. "You should take this money bag, and fill it with some coins," she said, picking up a small black drawstring bag from a hook by the door that Harry hadn't noticed. "I would suggest taking the two hundred galleons that your parents left for you for school, along with a further hundred. That will last you well into the school year, and I'm sure there will be some extra purchases that you want." Harry nodded at this.

"Professor... how much is a galleon worth in muggle money?" He asked. "I want to change some over, and get some new clothes, if we have time. Everyone I've seen today wore wizard robes, I can't wear that at the Dursleys, and these," he tugged disdainfully at the transfigured clothes he was wearing, "are a lot better since you fixed them, but... but they were still Dudley's." He finished, looking down.

"A galleon is worth around five pounds in muggle money. We can get some converted when we go back to the main hall, and go to muggle London for a while after we've finished in Diagon Alley. I don't know the shops very well, but I understand there are several in the nearby area." Professor McGonagall replied. Harry did a double take at the figures. He was going to take out about fifteen hundred pounds as if it was a regular occasion! Harry couldn't believe it.

"Professor! That's far too much money, I can't spend all that in one go. What if the Dursleys find out? They'll take whatever I buy away from me. I can't spend that much, it's more than I've ever spent in my life!"

"Calm down Harry. Your parents left you this vault because they could trust you with it. You won't spend it all in one go. And you can't go to Hogwarts with old books and dressed in rags! It would dishonour your parents that you don't take this opportunity to make a life for yourself. We shall sort out your school things first, and then we shall see about anything else," scolded Professor McGonagall. Harry sighed resignedly, and filled the pouch with the suggested amount of gold. To his surprise, it barely weighed anything once filled. He asked the Professor about it.

"The bag is charmed to be light and unlimited in capacity. As it's a special Gringotts bag, it will only hold your money, and nothing else. Knowing the goblins, it's probably got several anti-theft charms built in." She turned to Griphook, who nodded in confirmation, and began to pick at his nails. He was clearly impatient, and an impatient goblin was not a good thing for wizards. "Come on Mr. Potter, the shops won't be open forever." And with that, she turned and left the vault. Harry followed her slowly, taking a last longing look at the chest he couldn't open. Griphook left the vault before him, and the second Harry cleared the threshold, the door began to close behind them. By the time they were at the cart, the vault was once more sealed shut, a small clunk announcing the completion of the locking.

The cart ride back to the surface was just as bad as the ride down. Bizarrely, they never seemed to go uphill, instead thundering off into a seemingly endless warren of tunnels until they stopped suddenly in a tunnel identical to the one they had started the first ride in. However, Harry had a suspicion that it wasn't the same room, and his thoughts were confirmed when they left through the only door and emerged into a different corner of the huge main hall. They visited the same teller they had seen before, and converted one hundred and fifty galleons into seven hundred and forty pounds, taking into account the goblin exchange rate. Harry nervously tucked more twenty pound notes than he'd ever seen into the magical pouch that contained his remaining galleons. He tried not to think what the Dursleys would do if they found that money.

It wasn't long before Harry was stood outside a shop called Milestepper's Magical Outfitters, which proclaimed itself as 'the first destination of every journey'. Professor McGonagall shushed Harry inside. The clerk looked up at him, saw Professor McGonagall, and smiled. "Good day, Minerva. Another Hogwarts student?" He asked, nodding towards Harry.

"Yes, Meili, he needs a large trunk please." Meili looked delighted with the news, and turned to Harry.

"Well, we have a large selection of trunks here. As we say, 'the first destination of every journey' is here, and what greater journey is there than Hogwarts, eh Mr...?"

"Harry." Harry replied, a little intimidated by the man's enthusiastic welcome. Meili gave a small gasp, and his eyes slid towards Harry's forehead.

"Not-" he began, only to be interrupted by Professor McGonagall.

"Yes, that 'Harry,'" she said exasperatedly. "Please don't make a fuss Meili."

"...ah...yes, of course Minerva... you always bring such good business to us" he replied somewhat distractedly. It didn't take Meili long to resume his normal personality, and he enthusiastically darted around the shop, talking about various trunks and bags. Harry eventually left with a smart looking cedar trunk, bound with steel bands and some scrollwork in the corners. To Harry, it was amazing. Depending on how you turned the key in the lock (half turns left and right, or full turn), it would open one of three different compartments, all of which looked to be bigger on the inside than the outside suggested. Furthermore, it would always weigh the same as it did when empty. Harry had no idea how he was going to lug it around Diagon Alley though. Luckily, Professor McGonagall had a solution. She pulled out her wand, and tapped it, shrinking it to the size of a credit card so that he could put it in his pocket. Thanking Meili, they left the shop, but not before Professor McGonagall had waved her wand over him, changing his appearance slightly. She frowned at the result.

"Mr Potter, I've charmed you so that you look slightly different than normal. It's a glamour, like the one I put on your bedroom, and will prevent attention. Some shop keepers won't be as discreet as Mr Milestepper was. I must say though, it took more effort than usual." Harry gulped nervously. He didn't want to reveal the illusions he placed on his body, but luckily, Professor McGonagall just led him to the next shop without any further questions.

-End of Chapter 8-

I'm ending Part I here, as it's a nice cut-off point. Rest assured, Chapter 9 REALLY IS the last chapter before Hogwarts. I just didn't want to post a10,000 word chapter, as I want to keep chapter length reasonably consistent. This doesn't mean I'll purposefully try and bulk out chapters or rush content, I just don't want to post a 4000 word chapter followed by a 10,000, and then go back to 4k. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, reviews and suggestions are always appreciated.

Authors Notes

**Magical Law Enforcement Patrol Officer: **Lower down than an Auror, focuses on general crime rather than that perpetrated by dark wizards. Canon.

**Apparation License and Apparation Point: **as far as I can tell, licenses are redundant in canon. How is the ministry going to prevent someone from Apparating if they know how to do so? Surely it's something that could be taught by family? Because of this, I've put in an Apparation Point, which needs a license to enter. My reasoning is that you shouldn't be able to Apparate onto a busy street- there's every likelihood the space you're aiming for is already occupied, and the magic would (I assume) send you back. Thus there is an Apparation Point for a safe arrival. Obviously, Disapparating can be done from anywhere not warded, and leaving a crowded high street won't be a problem. I'd imagine all wizard houses and shops must have anti-Apparation/Disapparation wards to prevent theft.

**Gringotts vault & money: **what's the point in having piles of sickles and knuts when they can be converted into galleons? Better to have a small stack of sickles for loose change. Using the exchange rate given in Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (£174 million= 34,000872G, 14S, 7K) to get (approx) 1G = £5.12, 1s = 30p, 1K = 1p. I wouldn't put heaps of 1ps in a bank.

Responses to reviews

**Glasses and the NHS: **Although I'm English, I've never worn glasses nor needed an eye test. Because of this, I was unaware that glasses were available to children on the NHS. Please assume that although the Dursleys are aware of this, they don't care about Harry, and are too lazy to take him to the opticians to get his eyes checked because they see it as a waste of time. I will also mention here that I forgot to have McGonagall fix the clothes Harry was wearing in chapter 7, along with his glasses. It was an oversight, for which I apologise. I may go back and change it later, but it isn't essential to the story.

**My writing style:** Yes I've re-written Harry's pre-Hogwarts life. To the guest who finds it boring- if you don't like it, stop reading. This is fan fiction, so if you want it to be the same as the books, I suggest you go and read them instead.

Likewise, I know there's not much dialogue so far, but how much do you expect when the opening chapters have been focussed on Harry finding his magic and himself? If you don't like the people you live with, then you don't talk to them unless it's out of necessity. Both dialogue and action will become more prevalent as Harry moves to Hogwarts and becomes involved with more people.

Finally, I like descriptive books. I hate the stories I have read which gloss over the important events, with phrases like "Harry saw the troll and wanted to save Hermione. He tried to distract it, and jumped on its back. The troll dropped its club and Ron levitated it and hit the troll on the head with its own club! Hermione was saved and they were all friends." To me, that is the most boring thing ever. I'm pretty sure my 6 year old cousin could write that.


	9. Chapter 9: Strange Highways part II

Harry Potter

And the Price of Ability

**As promised, an immediate update and part II of chapter 8. This ****really**** is the last chapter before Hogwarts, and I am finally writing Harry's first year. Enjoy!**

Chapter 9: Strange Highways Part II

Having acquired a trunk, Harry's next destination was the book store. This was one of the places he'd been looking forward to the most. He'd re-read the list of books on his letter several times over the months he'd been waiting for Professor McGonagall, trying to imagine what secrets Magical Theory would hold, and what he'd be concocting from Magical Drafts and Potions. As it was a Thursday, the book store wasn't very busy, and they were able to pick up Harry's books quite quickly. Once Harry discovered the amazing range of books in stock, he wanted to stay a lot longer. Browsing the titles, every other book seemed interesting. He was eventually dragged away from a book entitled 'Hexes and Reflexes: Getting Revenge and Defending Yourself', with stern words from Professor McGonagall on how she better not catch him hexing people, not that he would be able to cast those spells yet anyway.

His new books safely stored in his trunk, which had been enlarged and then shrunk again, they headed off to a shop called Madam Malkin's for his robes. "I'll have to drop the glamour once we're in Madam Malkin's," Professor McGonagall explained. "As you'll have to be measured for your robes, it won't do for her not to be able to see your actual body." Harry's mind raced into overdrive at this. If Madam Malkin wanted to measure him, he'd have to drop his illusions as well as have the glamours removed by Professor McGonagall. McGonagall would know what was going on instantly. Harry panicked all the way to Madam Malkin's, desperately trying to think of a way to explain everything to Professor McGonagall. There was obviously no way she was going to take a request to just buy ordinary robes into consideration; she'd seen his vault, and knew he could afford the best robes there were. And he was looking forwards to getting the first new clothes that he could remember.

And then it wasn't a problem anymore. They were right outside Madam Malkins, Harry still panicking, when a loud "Minerva!" got their attention. Two minutes later, Harry couldn't believe his luck as he found himself with the glamour removed, his illusions dropped in public for the first time in months, alone in Madam Malkin's, waiting to be served. Professor McGonagall had gone to catch up with the friend who had interrupted them and saved Harry; Harry had leapt at the opportunity and persuaded her that he would be fine buying clothes on his own and that it would take a while to get measured and buy everything. Harry thought it was slightly odd for the stern witch to just give in like that; he could tell from the short time they'd been together that she wouldn't be one to cross at school, but was grateful for the opportunity, and eventually Professor McGonagall had left after receiving a solemn promise that he wouldn't leave the shop until she returned.

Harry soon found himself standing on a small platform, feeling rather stupid as the portly Madam Malkin fussed around him, taking his measurements and chattering slightly as she did so. It wasn't long before she had whisked out of sight in order to fetch some robes for him, and in that moment, Harry realised he wasn't the only customer in the shop. From behind a curtain to his left, there came a small yelp, followed by the arrogant voice of a child. "Keep those things away from me, woman!" From his voice, the boy was clearly young- probably around Harry's age, and the tone was one Harry recognised instantly. He'd heard it all his life: the spoilt, 'I'm better than you' whine of Dudley was near identical to this new boy's tone; the only thing that differentiated them was that this child had a slightly higher pitch, and was undoubtedly magical and nowhere near as fat as his cousin.

At that point, the curtain that had surrounded the boy was pulled back, somewhat sharper than would be polite, but Harry could see that the woman serving the boy was clearly unhappy with his attitude. The boy strode off of a podium like the one Harry was on, and marched to a mirror. He began examining himself from almost every angle, preening his blonde hair as he did so. Harry didn't think he'd ever see someone as vain as Aunt Petunia, but here was her male counterpart in the flesh. The boy stopped examining himself, and stared at the shop assistant. "It'll do." He said. Then he noticed Harry for the first time, as the assistant bustled off to collect some more robes in the same size. "Hullo. Hogwarts too?" questioned the boy. Harry nodded. The boy looked at him curiously. "What house do you think you'll be in?" Harry shrugged. He hadn't really given it much thought. "Don't say much, do you. I'm going to be in Slytherin. I couldn't imagine being anywhere else." Harry stared a little. From what Professor McGonagall had told him, Slytherin was the one house he didn't want to be in. He spoke up timidly.

"...Maybe Ravenclaw."

"Oh, so you do speak. Well, I guess Ravenclaw's okay. I'd rather go home than be in Hufflepuff or Gryffindor. Full of muggleborns, the pair of them... you are a pureblood aren't you? Not many muggleborns know about the houses." The blonde boy shot him a strange look. He seemed to be torn between a sudden uncertainty and a self-righteousness, as though he wanted to make sure he was superior, but didn't want to offend in case he wasn't.

"My parents were a witch and wizard." Harry replied coldly. The boy looked slightly relieved. He was about to say something more, but got cut off by the return of the assistant and Madam Malkin. The assistant drew the curtains back around the boy, and Madam Malkin tutted under her breath as she gave Harry a robe to try on, drawing the curtain around him as she did so.

Harry took off his jacket, and pulled the robe over his head. It was a little long in a couple of places, and quite baggy around his waist. A small pincushion appeared from nowhere, and Madam Malkin began to pin the robe into shape, explaining that she would leave it a little long in both the sleeves and general length so that he wouldn't have to come back for a new one at Christmas. She worked quickly, and it wasn't long before Harry found himself standing in front of a mirror. He stared at his reflection. He'd never seen himself wearing new clothes before, and even with the pins sticking out of the robe, he knew he looked like a wizard. It was the first time he'd actually felt it. Sure, he could do magic, but this robe made him feel like it was finally real. He felt slightly more confident, and, for the first time in his life... a little cool.

The blonde boy had disappeared without saying goodbye, but as he hadn't even bothered to introduce himself or find out his future classmate's name, Harry didn't feel this was a great loss. He spent a while chatting with Madam Malkin, and had arranged for a complete set of robes for Hogwarts, including a fur-lined winter cloak and a hat.

"Madam... how often will I have to wear non-Hogwarts robes?" he asked. He knew he wouldn't have to wear them in the holidays: the Dursleys would kill him if he walked around Little Whinging dressed like a wizard. But then again, he didn't know what the students wore at weekends, or if there were any special occasions when he had to wear different robes.

"Not very. Students are required to wear school robes throughout the day, but can wear what they like at weekends. In the winter, most will choose to keep their school cloaks on, as they're very warm. They'll wear their own clothes under that, so if you want to wear muggle clothes, you may. Lots of the wizard children will wear jeans and sweaters, as many grow up in muggle areas." Madam Malkin answered. Harry decided that he'd avoid getting ordinary robes for now, as they weren't needed for Hogwarts.

Harry eventually left Madam Malkin's with a winter cloak, three sets of plain black work robes, a pointy black hat, and three pairs of black trousers, five white shirts, and two black jumpers to wear underneath the robes. With his new uniform packed into his trunk, which Madam Malkin had shrunk for him so he could put it back in his pocket, he walked out of the store in his old clothes, hidden under the glamour which Madam Malkin had reapplied for him. As soon as Madam Malkin turned her back on him, he re-applied his illusion, so he would look exactly the way Professor McGonagall had left him. Professor McGonagall wasn't around, but he spotted a pet store nearby. The Dursleys had never allowed him to have a pet: anything that would make him happy wasn't allowed, dogs were smelly, and Uncle Vernon hated cats. The only reason they'd let his Aunt Marge bring her dog from time to time was because they knew it hated Harry. Harry remembered that the Hogwarts letter had said that he was allowed to bring a pet, and so poked his head back into Madam Malkin's, and told her where he was going in case Professor McGonagall came back and was worried.

When Professor McGonagall found him in the Magical Menagerie half an hour later, Harry had a beautiful snowy white owl perched on his shoulder, and was inspecting the cages. It seemed to her that the owl was just as involved in the decision making process as he was, and when they left the store, Harry's new pet was hooting happily in her shiny new cage. Harry resisted any suggestion of putting the owl in the trunk, but the owl clicked her beak at him and, to Professor McGonagall's surprise, the cage was in the trunk two minutes later. However, the owl was contentedly perched on Harry's shoulder, and gave him the odd affectionate nip as he talked to her about what he needed to get for school.

The trio breezed through the last of the shops, acquiring potions ingredients in the apothecary, which were placed in a small wooden chest. The chest was another wonder, with drawers that expanded when opened, so they could hold a lot more than apparent at first glance. The chest disappeared into Harry's trunk, and was joined by a collapsible cauldron, dragon hide gloves, a set of crystal potion vials and beakers, a set of brass scales, and a telescope, all of which were purchased in an odd shop that reminded Harry a bit of the kitchenware section in the supermarket- if it was combined with an antique shop, that is.

The only thing left on Harry's list was a wand, but Harry had what he saw as a more urgent problem on his mind. After all, he could already do some magic without a wand, but it wouldn't help him at all if he couldn't see what he was doing. "Professor..." he began. He was still a little nervous around her, even if she'd shown him nothing but kindness so far, and the last time he'd brought up this subject, his aunt had flipped. He had a strong feeling that this was going to make the Professor angry as well, but probably not with him.

"Yes, Harry?" she replied.

"Um... is there anywhere here where I can get new glasses? My eyes have been hurting a bit lately and..." he trailed off. Sure enough, there was a sudden blaze of anger in Professor McGonagall's eyes.

"Oh, those..." she fiercely muttered under her breath. She took a deep breath to compose herself, and smiled at him. "Yes, there is. Not that many wizards wear glasses until they get very old. Your father was one of the few exceptions, but I personally don't believe he needed them. Your family were more than wealthy enough to afford the corrective or stalling spells and potions that can prevent eyesight deterioration when it's first detected. Of course, even those wear out eventually, as no part of a wizard lasts forever. It's my belief that James started to wear glasses to look more intelligent, possibly to impress your mother. Of course, knowing him, he probably charmed them to do something else as well..."

"So I can get my eyesight fixed?!" Harry exclaimed excitedly.

"Unfortunately, no," Professor McGonagall replied sadly. Harry's face fell. "The potions and spells I mentioned prevent a wizard's eyesight deteriorating further for a long time. They're usually given at a young age, when eyesight problems are first detected, and can correct up to half a point in each eye. For young children, that's usually enough. I'm not a healer though, so I don't know much more than that. However, there is an optical specialist here, so we can go and see them now." Harry was a bit happier after receiving that bit of news. His eyesight may not be fixed, but at least it wouldn't get any worse.

The optical healers was at the opposite end of the alley to their current location, but the walk passed quickly as Harry grilled Professor McGonagall on all she knew about eye health. It wasn't much, but by the time they got to the healers, Harry was almost bubbling over with excitement. Professor McGonagall was a little startled by this; every child she'd brought to Diagon Alley had their minds on one thing only: a wand. And yet Harry didn't even seem bothered by that. Most odd.

The shop itself was brightly lit, with white painted walls, and an array of glasses frames on display along one side. The wizard behind the desk greeted them with enthusiasm. "Good day, welcome to the Sensory Centre. How may I- Professor McGonagall?" the young man ended abruptly as he recognised his customer.

"Hello Mr Koch. It's a surprise to see you here. I thought you were heading to St Mungo's?" Professor McGonagall replied. She turned to Harry. "Mr Koch graduated from Hogwarts- what was it, seven years ago?" the healer nodded. "He was one of our best students, excelled in transfiguration and charms, with a good knowledge of potions if I recall?"

"Professor, you flatter me too much. And please call me Archie. Yes, you're quite right about St Mungo's, I was an intern there for three years and got my healer's licence. But I kept seeing an increasing number of muggleborns coming to us with eyesight problems. They'd been wearing glasses, and would eventually be told about the various procedures by a friend. Now, as you know, I'm a muggleborn myself, so I decided to change that. I studied under the head optometrist at St Mungo's for a year, before I left and got in contact with a couple of people who specialised in magical artefacts, and started up this shop. Now, how can I help you today?"

"Mr Potter here needs his eyesight checked, and a new pair of glasses. He says his current ones give him headaches."

"Okay then Mr Potter, come through, and I'll have a look at you." Archie lead Harry through a door into a small office, with two comfortable looking chairs in it. He told Harry to sit down, and then performed a couple of complicated sounding spells on him. "Alright then... let's see... you're long sighted, left eye marginally worse than the right, never had any corrective or stasis potions or spells cast on you. Is that correct?" Harry nodded. "Well, the first thing we'll do is give you the stasis potion. Don't worry," he said with a chuckle, "it won't hurt at all."

Archie retrieved a small beaker from a cupboard. The potion it contained was a deep purple in colour, and seemed to be glowing. He checked the date printed on the label, and then passed it to Harry. "That potion will halt further deterioration of your eyesight, and correct them ever so slightly. It only corrects half a point on your eyesight; you're at about plus two and a half in your left and plus two in your right, so we'll have to find an extra way to deal with that. Now, chop chop, down the hatch!"

Harry obediently opened the lid on the beaker, and sniffed at the potion tentatively. He didn't know what to expect, but to his surprise, it smelt a bit like the pine resin lacquer he'd applied to the Dursley's coffee table last year. He took a large gulp from the beaker, and when he found it didn't taste too bad, he finished the rest of it. He put the beaker down, and gave a small smile to Archie, then gasped as he felt the effect take hold. His eyes felt as if they were being bathed with a cool, damp flannel. He shut them reflexively, and when the effect wore off, he opened them again. To his surprise, his vision was slightly less blurry than it had been before. In fact, with his old glasses on, it was nearly as good as when they were new! "Wow!" he exclaimed. "This is great, I can see so much more clearly now!" Archie chuckled.

"Hold your horses, Mr Potter. We've still got to sort out some new lenses for you."

They went back to the sales room, and Archie began to explain some of the different options available. "Now, eyewear for wizards hasn't changed much over the last couple of hundred years. We have monocles, glasses, and even some fake eyes. Some of them have some extra features built in. All of our glasses come with a protective charm for the lenses. This means they won't get scratched, won't chip, and won't get dirty either. We also put an Impervious charm on them as standard- this prevents them from fogging up, and keeps the worst of the rain off of them so you can still see clearly. Finally, we've been experimenting with mimicking a few muggle ideas lately (not that you'll ever hear us tell that to a pureblood). We've come up with an adjustment charm that mimics reaction lenses. When you step into a bright light, the glasses dim a little, so your eyes can adjust to the light more quickly. That's an optional extra, but in my opinion, well worth the cost."

"What about enhanced sight, and other abilities?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"Ah, I assume you mean like Mad-Eye's magic eye? I know he's a good friend of yours." Archie replied. Professor McGonagall nodded. "His eye is special. As it's a replacement eyeball, there's more room to work runes onto it. It was designed by my supplier's father, custom job. And one unlikely to be repeated. You see, as the eye was lost, the sight from the eye had to be connected to the user. Moody had the runes to allow him to see carved directly into his eye socket, and a couple of goblin-made silver runes implanted onto his retina." Professor McGonagall gasped. "As you can understand, the process was incredibly painful, and certainly accounts for a couple of those scars on his face. But for him, the benefits outweighed the cost. For anyone else... I can't imagine any wizard would go through that willingly. Not many people know that, so please keep it to yourself."

Harry was still looking at the various frames on display when an idea struck him. "Sir... Archie... do you have any contact lenses like muggles have? My glasses can e really annoying sometimes."

"...we do... however, it's not something we've sold yet." Archie replied hesitantly.

"Why not?" Harry asked curiously.

"They're untried. It's a muggle idea, never used by wizards before. No-one wants to be the first. They don't have the same protection as the glasses- they don't need them- but they do have an everlasting and moisturising charm on them, which means they won't ever have to be taken out until your eyesight gets worse. For you, that wouldn't be for many, many years, until the natural aging of your body starts to stiffen the muscles in your eyes." Harry's eyes gleamed at this. No glasses, forever?

"I'll do it." He said. Archie looked startled.

"You will?"

"Yeah. If they're as good as you say, I'll keep them, and I'll take a pair of glasses just in case I have problems."

"Wonderful!" Archie cried. "Can you come back at Christmas, so I can see how you're doing?" Harry nodded. "Well then- I'll do you a deal. I'll give you both the contacts and the glasses for free now. When you come back for the check-up, if the contacts are fine, I'll take the glasses back, and we'll talk. If you'd rather use the glasses, I'll take the contacts back and you can pay me for the glasses then. How's that sound?"

"That sounds good?" Harry said, glancing towards Professor McGonagall, who nodded. "I'll take them."

After choosing a nice pair of wire rimmed glasses as a backup, Harry sat patiently as Archie activated charms on both the contact lenses and the lenses for the glasses. When they were ready, he put the contact lenses in. He'd seen Aunt Petunia put her contacts in before, but it still took a couple of efforts to bring the foreign object to his eyes. Once they were in place, he blinked a couple of times, then realised he could barely feel them. "I can see perfectly! This is amazing!" He exclaimed. The two adults smiled at him. Just then, his stomach rumbled loudly. Professor McGonagall began apologising and fussing, saying she'd completely forgotten about lunch amidst all shopping and the excitement over his new contacts. They bade farewell to Archie, with a reminder from him about the check-up at Christmas.

After a large lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, consisting of a plate of sausages and mash for Harry, and a Caesar salad for Professor McGonagall, the Professor took Harry into muggle London to buy new clothes. He spent just over half of the seven hundred pounds he'd got from Gringotts, buying two new pairs of trainers, several pairs of jeans, and a selection of t-shirts. He added a couple of warm looking hoodies, as well as a new overcoat. Professor McGonagall recommended he should buy some boots, as the Scottish winter at Hogwarts was bound to include plenty of snow; however Harry couldn't find any he liked, so they decided to get some dragon hide boots in Diagon Alley. After paying for all the new clothes, Professor McGonagall led them into a very quiet section of the store, and after casting a spell to confuse the CCTV cameras, unshrunk Harry's trunk so he could put all the new purchases in it. The trunk safely back in his pocket, they headed off to Diagon Alley once more. However, Harry became distracted by a store on the way back, and twenty minutes later, they left it. Harry was proudly clutching a new Sony Discman, which came with headphones so that he could listen to that Nirvana CD that Dudley had discarded in his 'second bedroom' before it became Harry's.

Finally, they stood outside of Ollivanders, the wand shop. Harry now had a new pair of black dragon hide boots safely stored in his trunk. Professor McGonagall had explained that Ollivanders was one of the three original shops in Diagon Alley, and was one of the oldest magical shops in England. As they entered the dusty shop, a bell tinkled in its recesses, and a short while later, an elderly man stepped out of the stock room at the back. "Ah... Minerva McGonagall. Fir and dragon heartstring, nine and a half inches, obviously excellent for transfiguration. And who do we have here, another Hogwarts student?" The man peered at Harry, focusing on him with bright, beady eyes that seemed to calculate everything about Harry. "Welcome, welcome, Mr Potter. I hope you can find your match here today." He turned back to Professor McGonagall. "You can remove the glamours from him now. It will make my work a little easier." She waved her wand over Harry, and the glamour faded. Mr Ollivander raised an eyebrow at Harry, unnoticed by Professor McGonagall. "Interesting, interesting... now, let's see, which is your wand arm?"

"Erm... I'm right handed," Harry said, a little confused. It appeared as though Mr Ollivander could see through his illusions, but he said nothing. He realised the old man had gotten out a tape measure and started measuring him as he was talking.

"...your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here, buying her wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work." He moved towards the desk, and Harry realised the tape was measuring him by itself. "Your father, on the other hand, favoured a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power, excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say favoured; it's really the wand that chooses the wizard. Now, let's see about yours..." and with that, he vanished into the store, and returned after a few seconds with a stack of boxes in his arms. "Try this one, Mr Potter. Elm and unicorn hair, 10 inches."

Harry took the wand, and waved it, feeling slightly foolish as he did so. His magic didn't come from a stick of wood! It was within him, a part of him. Why did he need this?

Nothing happened. Mr Ollivander took the wand from him and offered him another. Harry waved the new wand.

And another.

And another.

It didn't matter how many wands Harry tried, none of them felt right in his hand. Some felt as if they just didn't want to move, whilst the majority just felt like a highly polished stick. He was starting to get frustrated, wishing he could find one so that he could go home. Ollivander handed him another wand. "Holly and phoenix feather. A rather unusual combination, had that one for years." As Harry gripped it, he felt... something. It wasn't the hesitancy that he'd felt in the other wands, it was a feeling of... warmth. The wood felt comfortable in his hand, as though it had always been there, and he could feel an odd disturbance in his magic, as though the wand was tentatively reaching out to him. He waved it, thoughts of his own magic still floating across his mind, and a large ball of golden light appeared in the air between Mr Ollivander and himself. "Oh, bravo! At last, at last... curious though..." Mr Ollivander trailed off. Professor McGonagall was smiling at him, and he felt a lot happier now that he finally had a wand. He still wasn't sure about it, but it certainly felt better than the hundreds of other wands he'd tried.

"Sorry... what's curious?" he asked Mr Ollivander.

"Hmm yes... quite so, quite so," Ollivander muttered to himself. He gave an odd little jerk, and his eyes focussed on Harry once more. "As I said, that wand has been in my shop for years. Decades, in fact. In all the time it's been here, only one other wizard has had a reaction to that particular wand. He too was a tricky customer, and that wand was the best reaction he had had so far. I thought he would take it, but he seemed to be looking for something more. In hindsight, I wish I'd sold him the wand you now hold, Mr Potter."

"Why? Then I wouldn't have a wand." Harry replied.

"Well, the wand chooses the wizard. That wand was looking for a master, but this wizard ignored it. To my regret, I sold him one of the oldest wands I had. Yew, with the plume of a male basilisk as the core. I was hesitant of course, that's a very powerful combination, and basilisks are only drawn towards two types of wizards, Mr Potter. Parselmouths, and Dark wizards. If it weren't for Professor Dumbledore, who was in the shop at the time and informed me that the boy was a Parselmouth, I would never have sold it. That wand went on to do terrible things. It was the cause for the scar on your head."

-End of Chapter 9-

**And there we have it! Next chapter features a certain train ride. I hope you enjoyed these two chapters, sorry for the long gap between updates. I've been so busy, trying to find a job, plan a holiday, redecorate a bathroom, find a car, two days of blacksmithing, and keeping the girlfriend happy! I hate job hunting- no experience = no interviews, so make me happy with some nice reviews :) I'll try and update a little more frequently in the future, but at least the pre-Hogwarts part is over! Hope you enjoyed reading it, and stay tuned for the next chapter!**

Notes

**Glasses: **I made Harry long sighted, simply because canon Harry can spot a snitch from halfway across a Quidditch pitch. There's no way he can't see well at a distance if he can do that, therefore glasses must correct short sightedness. Further corroborated by Harry's blurriness at seeing Dumbledore's face at the end of 1st year when he has no glasses on. As for the no superpowers... I hope you enjoyed my reasons why!

**Wands: **I know Voldemort's wand is meant to be yew, with a phoenix core. However, it seems to me that a phoenix is a light creature, much like a unicorn, and neither would choose Voldemort willingly, as he already showed evil tendencies at a young age. Because of this, Voldemort has a different wand core. Also, this negates priori incantatem. In my mind, that only happens with a twin phoenix core. A) Phoenixes are rare, as are tail feathers. B) Phoenixes aren't really that violent (basilisks aside). Their predominant power is healing. Unicorns will fight each other, and as for dragons... I'm also assuming that as phoenixes are rare, phoenix feather cores are too, thus priori incantatem is a very rare event. This explains why Voldemort doesn't know about it, as he's probably not well versed in phoenix or wand lore.


	10. Chapter 10: One Door Away From Heaven

Harry Potter

And the Price of Ability

**Sorry this update has taken SO long; time is flying for me at the moment. Since the last chapter, I've managed to get myself a job, do my xmas shopping, have a dull Christmas with relatives, had a large argument (and thankfully, made up) with my girlfriend, finish the job contract, applied to uni, created a portfolio, been to an interview, been offered a place on a uni course, and begun job hunting AGAIN. Oh, and apparently I now need a car. Student Finance is trying to screw me over, I have to call up my old uni, and ARGHHHHHHH! Every time I finally got a moment to myself, I just can't find the will to write. And then all of a sudden, an idea for a new fic popped into my head, and that one demanded to be written. It even has a complete plot and everything! It's a lot easier for me to write, and will also be a lot shorter, so look out for it soon. It's a post-prophecy-pre-Voldemort-attack fic that will take into account James and Lily's personalities rather than have them hiding and waiting to die as seemed to happen in cannon. I'm writing it at the same time as I'm working on this, but it's going to be a lot shorter (probably about 5 chapters). The first chapter of '**_**A Marauder's House'**_** will be up shortly, so if you'd like to read more of my work, please check it out! I'm not abandoning The Price of Ability though, and I will be updating this when I can.**

**At the moment, I'm a little unsure about where this fic is going. I've got lots of ideas floating around in my head, but they don't really link up. I have a few notes here and there, but the going is slow. Until everything urgent in my life is sorted (i.e. uni, job), this has lowest priority. Still, here's chapter 10 for you to enjoy in the meantime!**

**P.S: About the wands. I'm not saying that Harry will have phoenix abilities or anything like that. I'm just saying that as "the wand chooses the wizard", the characteristics of the donor animal may influence how the wand chooses. I just can't see a phoenix wanting anything to do with Voldemort. Anyway, enough of my waffle, on with the show.**

Chapter 10: One Door Away From Heaven

It was midnight, on the twelfth of August, and an extremely frustrated Harry Potter was sat on his bed, alternating an angry glare between his copy of The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) and the holly and phoenix feather wand in his right hand. Despite a stern warning from Professor McGonagall about the repercussions of practicing magic in his home, he'd completely ignored her, and was doing his best to learn some of the spells he'd need for the coming year at Hogwarts.

His snowy white owl watched him from the corner of his room, where her cage sat on the small chest of drawers that held his clothes. Her beady yellow eyes were fixed on him, and every now and then, she gave a small hoot which he interpreted as a mocking laughter. Hedwig (a name he'd found in his History of Magic text) gave her wings a small flutter, and preened a couple of feathers, before fixing her gaze back on him. Slowly, and deliberately, she tapped her beak against the silvery bars. Harry sighed. "All right girl, calm down." He muttered under his breath. He went over to the cage, and slid back the catch, opening the door to let Hedwig out.

Harry had returned from his shopping trip with Professor McGonagall late in the afternoon of his eleventh birthday. In his pocket had been his brand new trunk, shrunk down, and containing all the new books, clothes, and items he'd bought that day. If his relatives had been surprised at the lack of bags, when they knew he'd gone shopping, they'd said nothing. Harry had said goodbye to Professor McGonagall, and gone upstairs to unpack. After he'd acquired his wand in Ollivanders, McGonagall, ever the teacher, had shown him how to shrink and un-shrink his trunk. All it required was a tap of his new wand to activate the built in shrinking feature. He'd taken Hedwig out of the trunk, and she'd immediately let out a rather loud hoot to show her displeasure at being cooped up in the cage inside the stuffy trunk whilst he moved around the muggle parts of London and Little Whinging. Uncle Vernon had let out a loud roar, and rushed upstairs, his anger somehow partially overcoming the Confundus charm Professor McGonagall had placed on Harry's bedroom door. Although Uncle Vernon hadn't actually come into the room, he had stood outside it, shouting at Harry through the thin wooden door. Harry had timidly opened the door, and although his uncle couldn't see the changes Professor McGonagall had made, he could see the owl, perched in its cage on top of the new trunk, hooting indignantly at all the noise. Uncle Vernon had demanded him to shut the owl up, and when Harry couldn't placate her, Uncle Vernon had retrieved a padlock and thrown it at Harry, telling him that the owl was to remain locked in its cage lest the neighbours see it flying around and start to get suspicious.

Harry grinned at the memory. With his back to his uncle, he'd pocketed the padlock, and created a small illusion on the cage's latch instead. Of course, his uncle hadn't provided him with a key to the lock, and there was no way he was going to lock his owl up until Uncle Vernon deigned to give him the key. The door of the cage now open, Hedwig hopped out onto his arm and let Harry stroke her briefly before she spread her wings and launched herself towards the open window. Harry watched her silhouette disappear into the night, off to hunt for prey. So far she hadn't brought anything back, which Harry was glad about, as he didn't fancy cleaning blood off of the carpet. He sighed. Professor McGonagall had told him that owls were used to deliver post between wizards, and whilst he thought that this was a little dated, he hoped he would make some friends at Hogwarts to whom he could write. It would be sad to have a post-owl and not send any post.

Harry turned back to his books. In the last few days, he'd read the first few chapters of all the books, hoping to get a rough idea of what each subject was about. The classes seemed as though they would be really varied: the books on charms, transfiguration and defence against the dark arts all sounding like a lot of hard work and committing lots of different spells to memory; on the other hand, potions and herbology looked as though they would be more hands on. He wasn't entirely sure why they would need to learn how to take care of magical plants, as gardening was a hobby for most in the 'normal' world. He supposed it would be useful to gather potions ingredients, but then again, the apothecary in Diagon Alley had had a huge stock of them ready for purchase. History looked to be much the same as what he'd done in primary school, except focussing on magic, with wars against dark wizards, goblins, and giants, instead of against the Vikings, Germans, and the French. There was no mention of English, maths, religion or science. Harry understood the lack of science- after all, magic would probably turn most scientific theories on their heads from the little he'd seen- but why no maths or English? Harry was sure that the wizarding world still needed maths to run businesses, and people well versed in English to write their books, newspapers... a good grade in charms certainly wouldn't be of any use for a journalist. Or so he thought. He realised abruptly that he had no idea what on earth lessons would consist of. How did you learn a spell? What was required? Was there homework? Practice this spell one hundred times, or write an essay, five hundred words on how to tame a dragon? He chuckled to himself. How on earth would you tame a dragon, with its cunning, its size, and ability to ensure a swift death from fire, claws, and god-knows-what-else.

_Lumos: the lighting_ _spell,_ he read. It was the first spell in his charms textbook. _This spell creates a light at the tip of the wand, which can vary in intensity given the strength at which it is cast. The incantation, Lumos (Loo-moss), has no required wand movement. _So far, he'd read all the introductory pages, which had covered basic wand movements, and how to alter the power you put into the spell, along with a brief safety guide which stressed the importance of not casting a spell unless you knew the intended outcome. It all seemed straightforward, and this 'lumos' spell looked to be close to his own starting point of creating light. He picked his wand up from the bed, and held it in front of him. "_Lumos_." He muttered. The wand emitted a few sparks. "_Lumos_," he said again, this time trying to will the light into being. A ball of light appeared in front of him, and he dismissed it instantly. That was his own magic; he didn't need it now. He had to use the wand.

-x-X-x-

It was two nights later when he finally managed to make the tip of his wand glow. The light it put out was more like the beam of a torch, as opposed to his particular style, which resembled a light bulb. That night, he cast it again and again, avidly reading his textbooks by its light. Every time he lost focus on his wand, the light would flicker out, causing him to grumble at his wand under his breath. On two occasions, there was a muffled thump from somewhere upstairs, and he quickly extinguished the light while he listened for the heavy, shuffling footsteps of the Dursleys. The creaking of floorboards, along with noises from the bathroom, told the story of Dudley's trip to the loo and back, and once Harry heard the ever inconsiderate Dudley slam his bedroom door shut, he re-cast the spell and continued reading.

To Harry's mind, a lot of the magic mentioned in the book was superfluous. Why would you need the incantation, _nox_, in order to end the lumos spell? On the occasions Harry extinguished the light, he did it in the same way he did with his own magic: he shut off the flow of magic to the wand, and the light went out. It was all very simple to Harry, but according to the book, it wasn't right. Harry sighed, and read on. Each night he practiced, and each night he learnt a few more things. Sometimes, it was how to do a wand movement a little better, perfecting his swishes so they were less like short slashes; other times it was very quiet work on his pronunciation. The books stressed that everything had to be perfect, and gave an example of a wizard who had wound up with a buffalo on top of him instead of casting a levitation spell. Although Harry's own brand of wandless magic was reaching a stage where he wouldn't need a spell or wand to levitate any item lighter than his chair by the time he got to Hogwarts, he wanted to learn how to do it with a wand anyway. It seemed as if it would be more powerful; at the very least, it would prevent questions pertaining to his abilities. But he had no desire to practice something like that in his bedroom. How on earth would he: a) explain, or b) survive explaining why there was a buffalo in his bedroom? At Hogwarts, the teachers would be there to put anything right, and he didn't think he'd get in too much trouble for doing something bad unintentionally.

Throughout the rest of August, he practiced his magics at night. Sometimes, he would hide in the woods near the park during the daytime: alone, he would practice his stinging hexes and a shield spell he'd found in the Standard Book of Spells. It seemed he was quite proficient with offensive magic; he found the spell to knock an object over a lot easier to learn than the _lumos _spell. He supposed it was due to the fact that he already knew a lighting spell, and didn't like doing it in a different way.

He was surprised to find a small number of plants growing in the woods which were mentioned in his potions or herbology texts. There was nothing vaguely magical about them, but they seemed to be known in both worlds. Perhaps all plants and animals had an essence of magic in them; he assumed that there wasn't a special magical variety of foxglove or St John's wort. Some of them he knew from working in his aunt's garden; others purely from the pictures in his copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. He kept a careful note of the ones he could identify, writing out their locations and rough quantities on a small pad of paper. He had no idea whether or not they'd be useful in the future, but he'd come across the Scouts motto: be prepared. Of course, there was no way his aunt and uncle would ever have let him join the Scouts, but their motto was a good one.

As August drew to a close, and summer waned, Harry was forced to approach his uncle in order to beg a lift to King's Cross. Since Professor McGonagall's visits, the Dursleys had all but stopped talking to him, taking only long enough to tell him what chores needed to be done before they left him alone again. Uncle Vernon certainly didn't seem to be in a good mood when Harry approached him the week before he was due to go to school.

"What do you want, boy?" snapped Uncle Vernon, having managed to ignore Harry nervously hovering over his shoulder for a good ten minutes until the adverts began in the half-time break in the football match he was watching.

"Erm... I was wondering if you could give me a lift to King's Cross on the thirtieth of August?" Harry replied. "It's just, I've got my trunk, and it's heavy, and I don't really know where to go..." Harry trailed off, as his uncle snorted in derision.

"We're not making you go to that freak school. If you want to go, you find your own way there. I'm not driving into central London on a Saturday. There's footie on, there'll be traffic, and I'm not going to put my back out lugging around a _trunk_ for _you._ What's wrong with a suitcase, eh?" And without waiting for an answer, Uncle Vernon turned back to the TV. Harry stood there shocked for a few seconds, before returning to his room. He hadn't expected his uncle to be nice, but he had hoped that he'd be able to get a lift to the train station. How was he meant to carry his trunk there? By magic?

At that, Harry mentally berated himself. Of course, it wasn't too surprising, given that he was still relatively new to the wizarding world, but he'd completely forgotten about what he could do. When the thirtieth of August rolled around, Harry was up bright and early. He'd packed his trunk the night before, and took a quick shower before getting dressed. He hurried downstairs, and made himself breakfast, as no-one else was up yet- it was a Saturday morning after all. After gulping his breakfast down, he went back upstairs, and brushed his teeth and put on his shoes and coat. He cajoled Hedwig into her cage, promising that he'd let her out once he got on the Hogwarts Express, and put the cage securely into one of the compartments on his trunk. With a grin, he pulled out his wand, and tapped the trunk, shrinking it to the size of a deck of cards, and slipped it into his pocket. Completely packed, with nothing bulky to carry, he checked his pockets to make sure he had some money with him, and picked up his Discman from his bedside table. Most of the CDs he'd bought were packed into the trunk, but he'd left out Kyuss's 'Welcome To Sky Valley' to listen to on the way to King's Cross. He slipped the headphones down his t-shirt, and plugged them into the device, which he put into one of the large pockets in his coat.

He quickly looked around the room before he left, making sure he hadn't forgotten anything, and wondered how his life had changed so much. A few months ago, he'd been destined for a life at Stonewall High, undoubtedly dressed in rags, and would have most likely spent another seven years being bullied. He might have left with half-decent grades, as he wouldn't have had to dumb down to Dudley's level, but probably wouldn't have many career prospects. He highly doubted the Dursleys would have encouraged him to go to university, and knowing them, he'd have probably been on the street the moment he turned eighteen and they were no longer responsible for him. Now, he was heading off to a school in another country, to study magic with other people who shared his abilities. The future possibilities were endless. He could become a potions master, or hunt dangerous beasts, or, or... whatever it was that wizards did. It certainly beat being on the streets.

As he made his way downstairs, he heard a noise behind him. He turned, and saw his aunt at the top of the stairs, clad in a shocking pink dressing gown, and fluffy slippers.

"You're off then," she stated. Harry nodded. "When will you be back?" She asked.

"Fourth of July. Professor McGonagall said we could stay at Hogwarts at Christmas and Easter."

"You've got everything?"

"Yeah." It was unlike his aunt to sound... almost caring. "I need to go, before I miss my train."

"...Take care, Harry," she said quietly, and turned back into her bedroom. Harry stared after her in shock. It was the first time he'd ever heard his aunt speak his name. He shook himself, and left the house.

-x-X-x-

One hour, a bus, and a train later, Harry found himself standing in Kings Cross station. He'd picked up a sandwich, drink and a packet of crisps from a small WH Smiths in the station. It was now half past ten, and he had half an hour to find the magical Platform Nine and Three Quarters. Thankfully, Professor McGonagall had explained it all to him when she gave him his ticket. The section of wall between platforms nine and ten was a magical entrance, and all he had to do was walk through it. As he drew near, he noticed one or two families hovering around near the walls. They all looked nervous. As he watched, the children gradually broke away from teary hugs, and walked towards the wall, nervously, but determinedly. The moment they reached the wall, they vanished along with their luggage trolleys, and the parents looked on. Some looked proud, some looked distraught, and others appeared to be panicking that their son or daughter had apparently been swallowed by a wall. Some of the other parents walked over to those that were panicking, and gave them some comfort. It was clearly time for Harry to go through as well.

He took a deep breath, muttered "here goes nothing" to himself, and strode towards the barrier. It looked like any other section of wall in the building, and he braced himself slightly as he took his last step into the wall. He became aware that he'd closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he looked around in amazement. In front of him was a bustling platform, crowded with students and parents. Obviously the magical families had their own way in, a there were plenty of older witches and wizards wearing robes of black, purple, blues and greens, and one or two sported large hats which clearly weren't the norm in the ordinary world. One elderly lady even had a stuffed vulture on hers, and he could have sworn that it turned its head and fixed its beady eyes upon him.

But the dominating feature of the platform was the enormous scarlet steam engine, with white steam billowing from its funnel, and ten pristine coaches strung out behind it. Harry strode along gaping at its regal magnificence, and noticed a couple of other students doing the same. They all looked to be his age, and were all dragging large trunks or suitcases behind them. Finally, he turned back, and began to look for a carriage with an empty compartment in it. Although the train wasn't quite due to leave yet, many compartments were already full, groups of older students laughing with friends and catching up with each other. He was on the second to last coach, and was just about to claim an empty compartment, when he heard a crash behind him. Although it wouldn't have been heard on the busy platform, it was obvious in the comparatively quiet coach. Harry turned around and looked down the corridor towards the door.

A young girl, about his age, with a huge mass of tumbling brown curls on her head was struggling to get a large suitcase onboard the train. A brief look out of the window showed that no-one was going to help her. Harry sighed, and looked around. There was no-one watching him. _It's now or never, _he thought, and dropped all of the illusions except the one which hid his scar. To the casual observer, he appeared to have grown by over an inch, and to have put on nearly an extra stone in weight. But crucially, he now looked like any normal boy. And none of the observant teachers would be wondering why he could do magic advanced enough to completely alter the way others perceived him. In short, Dumbledore wouldn't realise the extent of his ability, and he would be as normal as any other student. Well, as normal as a celebrity in a school for magic got. With the illusions dropped, he left the compartment, and walked over to the girl, who had since righted the heavy suitcase.

"Need a hand?" asked Harry. The girl looked up at him, frustration clear in her eyes, and sighed in relief.

"Yes please," she said. She looked behind her. "This one was the heaviest, but the others are almost as bad." Harry sidestepped around her, and saw two more suitcases waiting on a trolley.

"No problem," he said, hopping out of the train, and picked up one of the suitcases. He heaved it up onto the train, and the girl wheeled it away to make room for the second. He grabbed that too, and lifted it up before getting back on the train himself. "There you go." He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

"Oh, thank you ever so much, I don't think I could have managed them all by myself, I mean, I'm so glad I had the trolley to get them here, but I didn't think it would be such a height to the train, and now I need to find somewhere to put them and-"

"There're luggage racks in the compartments," said Harry, cutting off the girl's rapid babbling. "You're welcome to share mine, if you like."

"That would be nice." The girl smiled again. "My name's Hermione Granger by the way."

"Harry," he replied. "Come on!" He grasped the handle of the largest suitcase, and wheeled it into his compartment. With a grunt, he stored it on the luggage rack by the door, and went back to get the last case, as the girl entered the compartment with the second. When he returned, the girl was looking around curiously.

"Where's your case?" She asked. Harry smiled, and tapped his pocket.

"All safe in here," he answered.

"Oh. Are you a second year? Or did your parents shrink it for you?" It seemed that the questions would come thick and fast from this one.

"No, I'm a first year. I got it in a magical shop though, so all it needs is a tap from a wand," replied Harry, carefully avoided the question about his parents. "How come you have so many suitcases? Even though my trunk's magical, I don't have anywhere near that amount of stuff..."

"Well, it's books mostly. I got all the school texts, and then a little extra for reference, and then I had to bring some of my favourites from home, because I didn't know if they'd have them in school..." Harry stared at her, somewhat at a loss for words. He'd never met anyone that enthusiastic about books. Of course, at school and at home, he was the only one who read anything. Aunt Petunia read endless gossip magazines that didn't deserve to be categorised as literature, and Uncle Vernon read the papers, mostly for the sports and the page 3 girls. Dudley was an idiot, and wouldn't read anything more than the odd comic- as long as it had a free gift. He didn't even read his school books, and bullied any smart kids to help him with his homework, so the smarter ones were afraid to show their intelligence. That way, there was no need to be 'encouraged' to help Dudley cheat in class. Of course, Harry ended up doing any of Dudley's homework for him. It was one of the main reasons Harry was seen as trouble in school- every teacher assumed that he copied Dudley's work, and Harry had to purposely dumb down what he handed in he wouldn't get a better grade than Dudley. Apparently, the teachers assumed he couldn't even copy correctly, although it was somewhat difficult to make himself look more stupid than someone who couldn't even do their nine time tables.

In the brief pause in conversation, Hermione had withdrawn into herself and sat down on one side of the carriage. Harry was just sitting down when he heard a loud whistle from the engine. He peered out of the window, and saw that the large old-fashioned clock on the platform read eleven o'clock. The train was ready to leave, and at last he was on his way to Hogwarts! Just then, the door to the compartment was flung open, crashing to a halt in its runners. Harry jumped, spinning away from the window, and Hermione had let out a small squeak and had curled into a foetal position on the chair, hugging her legs to herself. A tall, lanky, redheaded boy about their own age stood in the doorway, with a battered trunk on the floor behind him. "Eh... sorry about that," he muttered sheepishly. "I didn't mean to scare you. I was just looking for a compartment, and thought this one was empty. Erm... I'll be on my way..." He was just turning to leave, when two more redheads appeared behind him.

"Wow Ron," the first one said. "I think there must have been someone in the next compartment-"

"Or in London-" the second cut in.

"Who didn't hear that!" Finished the first. They stepped into the compartment, and it became obvious to Harry that the two were twins, and quite clearly the elder brothers of Ron. One bowed to Harry, whilst the other bowed to Hermione on the other side of the compartment, and then, in perfect synchronisation, they pivoted around each other to bow to them again.

"My name's Fred," the first said.

"And my name's George," said the second.

"And we're the notorious Weasley twins!" They said together.

"We must apologise for our prat of a brother," Fred said seriously.

"So we'll take our leave and teach him some manners!" And with that, they each grabbed one of Ron's shoulders, and dragged him out of the compartment, pushing his trunk ahead of them, and closing the door behind them.

Harry had no idea what to make of this display, and by the look on Hermione's face, it appeared that she was equally stunned. "What on earth was all that about?" she asked. She was still coiled up on her seat, but now looked a lot more relaxed. Harry shrugged, and sat down.

"Dunno. The main question is what do we do about _that_?" He asked, pointing to the door. A large crack ran its window. Of course, Harry could have fixed it quite easily with his own magic, but he hadn't learnt a spell to repair things, and certainly didn't want to show off his own magic.

"Oh, that's easy," replied Hermione. She uncurled herself from the seat, stood up, and rummaged in her backpack, her hand quickly emerging with a wand. Pointing it at the door, she gave it a quick flick, and incanted "_Repairo!"_ and the crack vanished from the glass. She turned back to Harry with a slightly smug look on her face.

"I thought you were a first year?" Harry queried.

"I am. But I tried a few simple spells at home, and they all worked for me!" Hermione answered, smiling brightly as she sat back down.

"Professor McGonagall told me I shouldn't cast magic at home..." Harry began.

"Oh, she said the same to me too," interrupted Hermione, "and I know it was wrong of me to try, but I _really_ wanted to learn, and I couldn't wait for school. I hope I don't get in too much trouble..." she trailed off, biting her lip nervously.

"I don't think you will," Harry assured her. "I tried to do some magic as well, but I didn't get on to the repairing spell. Magic is hard, I could make sparks and the lumos charm, but that's all. I read ahead though, the repairing spell is in chapter five isn't it?"

"It's in chapter four, actually." Hermione took a deep breath, and even though Harry had only known her for about half an hour, he could sense a lecture coming on. He wasn't wrong. "I got up to chapter six; I only hope it's enough. I don't know how they'll start us off, and I imagine the wizarding children have learnt lots of spells at home already. I didn't want to be too far behind everyone, I read all of our books three times, and memorised most of them-" she was cut off mid flow by Harry's laughter. The shocked look on her face made Harry laugh even more- until it abruptly changed to a look of hurt, and her legs came back up onto the seat as she curled up once more. Harry's quiet laughter died instantly. To his horror, it looked like she was on the verge of crying.

Harry had had absolutely no experience in cheering people up in his entire life. In fact, he had very little experience with human interaction at all. Aside from his relatives, his teachers, and Professor McGonagall (who was soon to be his teacher anyway), no-one had ever spoken to him for more than five minutes. All the kids at school had shunned him and called him names. And now this girl, the first person who actually seemed to like him, was on the brink of crying. He had to stop it. "Hermione... I'm sorry... please don't cry..." He said hesitantly. She raised her head from her knees and glared at him.

"_Go away,"_ she hissed at him. Harry didn't move.

"I-" he began.

"No. I thought you were different. But you're just like _them._" She spat the last word out.

"Like who?"

"Like _them_. I thought you were _nice_, you _helped_ me. I thought that I could be _normal_, in a magic school." She gave a short, humourless laugh. "But no, you're just like _the rest_. Go away, leave the _bookworm_ alone." And just like that, it clicked for Harry. She was smart. Clearly smarter than he was, and he'd been ostracised for being more intelligent than the rest of his class. Well, it was more that Dudley made it clear what would happen to anyone who was friends with the _freak_ but his intelligence didn't help. Even without Dudley, he probably wouldn't have had many friends. She probably had a much better home life, but she was no better off in the social department than he was. She was just like him. He reached out, and touched her arm, with a sad smile on his face as she flinched back from his touch.

"Hermione, I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing at me." Confusion spread across her face. "I laughed because in the last twenty minutes, I got to know you well enough to know that you were going to give me a small lecture on everything you've read. You're smart. I don't think that's a bad thing." There was a slightly hopeful look in her eyes now, the anger and sadness fading a little. He pressed on. "From what you just said, I'm guessing you didn't have many friends at school?" She shook her head, but said nothing. He sighed. "I guess that makes two of us. My cousin made sure I wasn't very popular."

Gradually, Hermione lowered her knees. She was still curled up on the seat, but now it was more for comfort than the defensive foetal position she'd adopted earlier. For the next hour, they gradually opened up towards each other, not going into too many details about their lives, but just talking, getting to know one another. The time flew by. He discovered she was the daughter of two dentists, an only child, and the first magical person in her family that they knew of, although she explained that the Statute of Secrecy probably meant that anyone before her grandparents could have been magical. At Harry's confused look, she went on to explain that only immediate family members could be told about magic, so as not to let the whole world know. In turn, Harry told her an abbreviated and heavily edited version of growing up with the Dursleys. How his parents were magical, but had died, and he had gone to live with them. They talked a little about their accidental magic, how he had turned a teacher's hair blue, and she had constantly summoned her favourite books to her, and even managed to turn invisible once when she was hiding from the main clique of girls at her primary school. Well, 'invisible' was a strong word. As she could still see herself, and see her reflection, Hermione didn't think it was true invisibility. Yet her classmates had walked straight past her while they were clearly still looking for her. They talked and talked, and for the first time in either of their lives, they felt like they actually had a friend.

Before either of the two children knew it, half of the train journey had passed. There was a knock on the compartment door, and a smiling, rotund witch opened the door. "Anything from the trolley, dears?" She asked. Harry looked out into the corridor and saw the witch had a trolley laden with snacks. Since visiting Gringotts, he'd had money to buy the odd chocolate bar here and there, so he asked for two Mars Bars. The witch looked confused for a second. "I'm sorry dear, we don't have any Muggle confectionary. Would you like some chocolate frogs instead?" Harry shot a look at Hermione, who shrugged.

"Could we have a small selection of everything please?" he asked the plump witch.

"Of course, dear." She picked up several small boxes, and handed them to him. She then waved her wand over the pile of boxes in his arms, and '11S14K' appeared in red letter above them. Harry reached in his pocket for his money, then realised he only had Muggle currency on him.

"Do you take pound coins?" he asked a little sheepishly. The witch shook her head. "Err... hang on a sec..." said Harry. He pulled his trunk out of his pocket, placed it on the floor, and tapped it with his wand. The trunk expanded, and Harry fished the key out of his pocket. When he'd packed, he'd sorted his belonging into three categories: clothes, school stuff, and personal stuff. He turned the key a full turn anticlockwise, to get into the personal compartment of his trunk. The second he opened the lid, there was a loud, indignant hoot from inside the compartment. "Oh! Hedwig, I'm so sorry, I forgot all about you!" He gasped, lifting the cage containing a very disgruntled owl from the trunk. Passing it to Hermione, he grabbed the bag containing his wizarding money, and fished a handful of sickles and knuts out. He counted out the money, giving the lady twelve sickles as he only had nine knuts. She waved her wand over the small pile of money, and '12S' appeared in green under the '11S14K' that still hung in the air. '15K' appeared in yellow beneath the two, and the witch handed over the knuts. All three lines disappeared simultaneously.

"Good day," said the witch as she left the compartment, closing the door behind her.

-x-X-x-

A short while later, Harry and Hermione's conversation had moved on to what they thought the lessons would be like. They had each tried most of the sweets. For Hermione, it was an entirely new experience: with dentists for parents, she'd never had anything more than a bar of chocolate. The Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans had been interesting, up until the point when Hermione had had a bogey flavoured one, and the beans lost their appeal. They each now had a couple of Chocolate Frog cards, and they had enthusiastically read the descriptions of the famous witches and wizards aloud. The cauldron cakes were like a jam filled muffin, and were an instant hit. Hermione had fawned over Hedwig, who looked pleased with herself as she allowed the girl to stroke her, all the while shooting glares at Harry. Harry had apologised profusely for forgetting about her. In the excitement of making a new friend, he'd completely forgotten his promise to let the owl out once he was on the train. He'd told Hermione that she could borrow Hedwig to write to her parents, and the girl had been so happy, she'd jumped up and hugged him.

There was a look of absolute shock on his face, and Hermione could feel him tensing beneath her. She let go slowly, and returned to her seat. He still looked a bit dazed, but very slowly, a small smile appeared on his face. She had the decency to look a bit embarrassed, but they were saved from any further awkwardness by the noise of the compartment door opening. The person who stood in the centre of the doorway was the arrogant blonde boy that Harry had met in Madam Malkins. Now dressed in his school robes, he still managed to give off the impression that he was superior to everyone else, even though he was dressed identically to the two boys who hovered at his shoulders. These new additions to his wardrobe- for by the looks on their faces, the boys clearly seemed to be accessories rather than to supply conversation and humour- were almost identical in stature, and strongly reminded Harry of his cousin. They were quite overweight, with chunky arms and legs, and had faces that were set in stone, almost expressionless. Their hair was lank, and the cut did nothing to redeem their small glaring eyes, sharp noses and gormless mouths. Whereas the first boy wore his robes as if they were the finest garments in the world, perfectly tailored to him, the two brutes at his shoulders looked as though someone had flung vast swathes of cloth at them and then crudely stapled them together. The imperious blond in their centre stared at the two of them.

"I'm looking for Harry Potter. Have either of you two," he paused for a split second, giving the impression of an insult left unsaid, "seen him?" He sneered slightly at Harry and Hermione. He gave no indication that he had met Harry before. Hermione gave a slight start at the name 'Harry Potter', but it went un-noticed.

"No," Harry responded evenly. "If we see him, we'll tell him you were looking for him, Mr..?"

"Malfoy. Draco Malfoy." He didn't even bother to introduce his two companions. "I wouldn't have expected the like of you to know where he is." And with that, he turned and left their compartment, his two goons trailing at his heels. Harry got up and closed the door behind him.

"Arrogant idiot. As if I'd tell him where Harry Potter is when he acts like that." Hermione gasped.

"You know where Harry Potter is? Oh, it's going to be so fascinating this year, being at school with such a well known figure. What's he like?" Harry laughed.

"We've been talking for over four hours, and you still don't know what I'm like?" He laughed again at her shocked face. "Perhaps I didn't introduce myself properly when we met. My name's Harry Potter. Pleased to meet you, Miss Granger." He stuck out his hand, and after a few seconds in which she collected herself from her shock and scanned his hairline for his scar, Hermione shook it.

"But you're so..."

"So what? I'm me. Your friend. I don't know anything about the wizarding world, except for what I've read in books, and I can tell you now, whatever any books that mention me in it say, they're lying. I don't know what happened the night my parents were killed, and I grew up not knowing anything about what happened or who I was in this world, and I'm fine with remaining who I am. I don't want to be someone like that ponce who just left the compartment." Hermione nodded at that. "All my life, I've been less than a nobody. Now, for once, I feel like a normal kid, except for the whole 'I'm a wizard' thing. I don't need to change all that again."

"But you lied to Malfoy. You'd said you hadn't seen Harry Potter today," huffed Hermione. Harry laughed.

"Well, I haven't looked in the mirror today, so no, I haven't," grinned Harry. That finally cracked her, and seconds later they were both laughing at the misfortunes of Draco Malfoy, wondering when he would finally give up his search.

-x-X-x

At long last, the Hogwarts express finally pulled into the station. An announcement rung through the train, reminding them to leave their trunks and belongings in their compartments, which would be magically locked once they were empty. All the students stepped off the train, all looking resplendent in their school uniforms. Hermione had been wearing her trousers, blouse, and jumper when she got on the train, and so had merely folded her coat into her rucksack, and pulled on her black robe over the top of her clothes. Harry, blushing slightly, had asked Hermione to step out of the compartment while he swapped his t-shirt, hoodie, and jacket for his school shirt, jumper, and robes, and was thankful he'd worn the trousers on the way. He'd stuffed his clothes back into his trunk haphazardly, wanting to change as quickly as possible. He was glad the driver had given them a ten minute warning before they got to Hogwarts, and reminded them that they needed to be in robes for the opening ceremony.

When they got off the train, they found it wasn't so much a station as a single stone platform, with two paths leading off of it. The students were all milling around, and it was easy to spot the first years near them. All of the older students were hanging around talking to their friends, and drifting slowly towards one of the exits, while the smallest people on the platform were standing around in ones and twos, looking lost and nervous. Suddenly, a loud voice boomed out over the crowd. "FIRS YEARS! FIRS' YEARS, OVER 'ERE!" Harry looked towards the sound of the noise, and saw an absolute giant of a man standing by the second exit. He stood at about nine foot tall- almost half as tall again as the tallest student Harry could see- and he looked about three times as wide as a normal man as well. After the seven hour train ride from London, it was dark, and the man was illuminated by the large lantern that he was holding high above his head. He looked quite wild, with frizzy, bushy hair that ran down to just past his shoulders, and his face was worn through years of working outdoors. On closer inspection though, he appeared to have quite a kind face, with warm black eyes that glistened in the lamplight, and a large smile on his bearded face. He was wearing a huge leather coat, and didn't seem to notice the wind that was causing the heavy coat to flap wildly behind him. Harry and Hermione clutched their black pointy hats to their heads, and made their way over.

Presently, the first years were the only ones left on the platform. The man did a slow head-count, and then double checked it. "Righty then, yer all 'ere. Can yer all 'ear me?" He asked, speaking loudly over the wind. Heads nodded all around. "Come closer, come closer, I ain' gonn' bite yer!" Nervously, the first years huddled around the huge man, grateful for the little bit of shelter he provided from the wind. "Firs, lemme introduce m'self. I'm 'Agrid, Keeper 'o Keys and Grounds at 'Ogwarts. If yer foller me, I'll take yer up to t' castle. It's the traditional route, firs' years take it e'ery year. Give the rest 'o 'em time ter get settled, see? Anyway, foller me!" And with that, he set off, is great lantern leading the way along the dark path. He set a slow pace, and kept glancing back to make sure the first year all kept up with him. The path was quite dark, and Harry was thankful for the light Hagrid's lantern provided. The path was lined with trees, and it was a little uneven in places, but luckily it was dry, and so their footing was sound. Harry shuddered to think what it would have been like if it had rained that day.

They had walked for around five minutes, when Hagrid shouted out "yer'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts any moment now," and they rounded a bend in the path. The path opened out onto the shore of a large lake, into which a small jetty protruded. There were about fifteen small boats moored at the jetty, but the sight that drew a gasp from all the first years was the magnificent castle which stood atop a cliff on the other side of the lake. The castle was enormous. There was no other word to describe it. Half a dozen towers soared into the remarkably clear night's sky, high above the main building, which appeared to be about seven floors high. From where they stood, they could see two sides of the great building, and along one side was an enormous row of lit windows, each three stories high. In other places along the walls, smaller windows were lit, and three of the towers held lit windows too. "Right now, four ter a boat, careful yer don' fall in!" Hagrid's booming voice snapped the students out of their mini daze, and soon they were all carefully clambering into the boats. Harry helped Hermione down into theirs, and they were joined by a round faced wizard, who stutteringly introduced himself as Neville Longbottom, and a stocky, smiling wizard who went by the name of Ernest (call me 'Ernie') MacMillan. Meanwhile, Hagrid had clambered into a boat all by himself, and after a quick check to make sure no-one was left on sure or floundering in the water, he raised a pink umbrella (which Harry hadn't noticed up until now), and gave a cry of "FORWARD!" With that, the boats slipped smoothly from their moorings, and began the trip across the lake.

Thankfully, the wind had died down, and the crossing was quite smooth. As the cliff and castle drew nearer, Harry could really appreciate the sheer scale of the building. He'd seen pictures of castles in his history textbooks at school and in the library, but they had done nothing to prepare him for the enormous building he was approaching. When they reached the edge of the cliff, the boats moved under a low curtain of ivy, and all the students ducked in fear as they entered a large cavern beneath the cliff. It turned out they needn't have bothered, for the ceiling was a good fifteen feet above their heads. The boats moved to the far side of the cavern, and there was absolute silence from the awed students. The only sound was the slight lapping of waves against the prow of the boat and the rocky walls. As the boats came to a halt next to a landing cut from the rock itself, Hagrid was the first out of the boat, and began helping the students out of theirs where needed. Once they were all safely on dry land, Hagrid lead them through a carved doorway that was flanked by two burning torches, and they followed him into well lit passage and up a flight of stone stairs until they reached a small hallway that was barred at the opposite end by a stout wooden door. Hagrid walked up to it, and knocked three times.

The door opened, and Harry smiled to see Professor McGonagall inside the doorway. She was wearing a smart dark green robe and hat, looking very different to the businesswoman she had appeared to be when she visited Harry, and this time looking every bit the witch she was. She turned, and the students followed her into an enormous entrance hall. There was an enormous staircase to their right, and the biggest set of doors Harry had ever seen on his left. They were a good thirty feet high, made from wood, with supporting ribs that were six inches thick, and held onto the walls on either side by three eight massive iron hinges. Directly opposite the door they had entered by was the second largest set of doors Harry had ever seen, in proportion to the first set, but only half the size, and about ten foot wide. Looking up, Harry could see huge flights of stairs, stretching up to the ceiling nearly two hundred feet above them. Number 4, Privet Drive, would have disappeared into this enormous entrance hall. In fact, half of the houses in Privet drive could have probably been stacked up in this one place quite easily. Professor McGonagall climbed up a couple of stairs, and stood in the centre of the staircase to address them.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," she began, her stern voice ringing clear in the silence of the entrance hall. "My name is Professor McGonagall, and I am the deputy headmistress, head of Gryffindor house, and Transfiguration teacher here at Hogwarts. In a few moments time, I will lead you into the Great Hall, where you will be sorted into one of four houses in front of all of your peers. Whilst you are at Hogwarts, you will eat, sleep, and go to class with those in your house. Your house will be your family, and will look after you. In return, you will support your house by staying out of trouble. House Points can be earned through good work and exceptional behaviour, whilst they can be removed for infringements of the rules and lack of discipline. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup. The student or students who accrue the most house points for each house in each year will be awarded with the Student Cup for each house; this is a great honour, and is a mark of excellent achievement.

"There are four houses here at Hogwarts: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. They are named after the four founders of Hogwarts, and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards in the past. Almost every wizard in Great Britain has passed through this school, so you could be standing next to the future Minister of Magic. You could be in the same house as the next Supreme Mugwump of the Wizengamot. You will be the future of this country, its teachers, its workers, its leaders. Where you end up is all down to the work you do here at Hogwarts. I expect you to abide by the rules, but also to enjoy yourselves during your time here. It s now time for the sorting ceremony." With that, Professor McGonagall stepped down from the stairs, to a smattering of applause from the first years. She nodded at Hagrid, who was standing at the back of the group, and he disappeared into a passage by the staircase. Professor McGonagall instructed the students to line up, and Harry found himself in between Hermione and Ron, the redhead who had first barged into their carriage.

"How do they sort us?" Harry whispered to Hermione. She shrugged.

"I don't know, it didn't say in Hogwarts: a History," she whispered back. Ron chose to butt in.

"My brother Fred said it hurts a lot, and George said something about wrestling a troll. I hope they were joking..." Harry rolled his eyes at Hermione, who suppressed a giggle. It was obvious the sorting wouldn't hurt them or involve something no-one had any experience with. How would that even qualify you for an individual house? _Most likely it was on some random basis _thought Harry.

Suddenly, the doors in front of them opened. Professor McGonagall started forwards, and led them into a vast hall, lit by a thousand candles that were floating in midair. Four long tables stretched the length of the hall, each filled with students who turned to look at them. Professor McGonagall lead them up the aisle between the two central tables towards a fifth table at the far end of the hall, at which sat a line of adults, all facing the rest of the hall. _They must be the teachers,_ Harry reasoned. Above the staff table hung five massive banners. To the left was a silver snake on a green background. To the right of that was a bronze raven mounted on a dark blue, and to the far right was a black and white badger, staring out from a yellow background. To the badger's left hung a golden lion, rampant on a deep red field, and in the centre, slightly above the rest, hung a huge crest bearing the creatures from the four banners surrounding a large H. Harry recognised the white bearded man sat directly under this central banner as Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, and the first card in Harry's small Chocolate Frog Card collection.

The staff table was raised on a small dais, allowing the teachers to look out over the students, and it was on this dais that a wooden stall stood. Upon it was a battered, ancient, faded black, pointed wizards hat. Professor McGonagall paraded them along in front of the staff table, and took them to the right hand side of the hall, where they lined up against the wall. She strode back into the middle of the hall, and stood slightly to the left of the hat and stool. Absolute silence filled the hall. Slowly, a wide tear appeared just above the brim of the hat, and the first years all jumped as one as it began to sing in a deep voice.

"_Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,_

_ But don't judge on what you see,_

_ I'll eat myself if you can find_

_ A smarter hat than me._

_ You can keep your bowlers black,_

_ Your top hats sleek and tall,_

_ For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat,_

_ And I can cap them all._

_ There's nothing hidden in your head_

_ That I cannot see,_

_ So try me on and I will tell you_

_ Where you ought to be._

_ You might belong in Gryffindor,_

_ Where dwell the brave at heart_

_ Their daring nerve and chivalry_

_ Set Gryffindor apart._

_ You might belong in Hufflepuff,_

_ Where they are just and loyal._

_ Those patient Hufflepuffs are true_

_ And unafraid of toil._

_ Or yet, in wise old Ravenclaw,_

_ If you've a ready mind;_

_ Where those of wit and learning_

_ Will always find their kind._

_ Or perhaps in Slytherin_

_ You'll make your real friends._

_ Those cunning folk use any means_

_ To achieve their ends._

_ So put me on! Don't be afraid!_

_ And don't get in a flap!_

_ You're in safe hands (though I have none)_

_ For I'm a thinking cap!_

The whole hall burst into applause at the end of the song, and the hat bowed its tip to each of the four houses. Harry heard Ron quietly muttering something about killing his brothers while he clapped."When I call out your name, please step forward, sit on the stool, and place the hat on your head. You will then be sorted," announced Professor McGonagall. A scroll appeared in her hands, and she unravelled it and held it before her. "Abbott, Hannah!"

The sorting had begun.

-End of Chapter 10-

Annnnd Harry's at Hogwarts! Sorry it's taken so long to get this far, but there were things I wanted to change before he got to Hogwarts. This is by far the longest chapter to date. I thought about splitting it up, but it didn't seem right. Thanks for your patience, please continue to read and review!

P.S: I've corrected the errors found in chapters 7-9, thanks to **Texan Muggle** for pointing them out It's only corrections though, no content has changed.

**Author's Notes**

**Dropping Harry's illusions: **it had to happen, otherwise Dumbledore would have seen through them and realised Harry has a bit more advanced magic than he should have. It's not that Harry is scared of Dumbledore, it's just that he has no reason to let anyone know what he can do. By dropping them out of sight on the train, no-one will be suspicious. The Dursleys would never know, and won't question when he returns after almost a year. McGonagall won't realise he's grown an inch, as he spent most of his time with her under one of her own Glamours anyway. And it allows him to get onto the train unmolested- although he didn't have the scene in the Leaky Cauldron with Hagrid, he still noticed the way some shop keepers treated him in Diagon Alley.

**Page 3 girls: **for those who are unaware, a couple of English 'newspapers' (I use the term loosely) feature a girl wearing nothing but her knickers on page 3. She is usually accompanied by a small bit of text that says something along the lines of "I want to end world poverty and thought getting my tits out would help." It's a very cheap newspaper (20p), and the price reflects the content.

**Astronomy: **I realised as I was writing this chapter that there was no textbook on Astronomy. Furthermore, it's never mentioned in the books- Harry takes an OWL in it, and attends classes, but as far as I can tell, it serves no purpose. Yes, phases of the moon are important in potions, and I assume in herbology as well, and there is also some stuff about it in Divination. It seems really odd to me that there isn't a textbook on it, so I'm going to incorporate it more into other subjects. It does seem completely irrelevant to learn about the surface of Io though ("Ron, you must have misheard Professor Sinistra, Io's covered in ice, not mice..."), as there's no mention of wizards in space. Maybe the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks live on Io.

**Hogwarts towers: **The Head's tower, Gryffindor Tower, Ravenclaw tower, Astronomy tower, Divination tower, Owlery tower.


End file.
